>It is quite difficult to understand reality about NT because there is much hype created by MS and the media that one could easily think NT would be the only OS in the business world left which is up to any task.
Fact: NT is absorbing the Novell, Banyan customer base (quickly).
Fact: Major US government agencies are standardizing on NT for certain mission-critical applications (USArmy/USAirForce=MS Exchange, NASA=MS Exchange, for example.)
Fact: The applications that once ran exclusively on Unix have been/are being ported to NT because these software companies perceive that there is great growth potential there.
My observations are not based on what I read, but on what I see. (I sell information technology and visit major government IT sites every day. Full disclaimer: I sell products from Network Appliance, Inc.)
The conclusion that I keep leaning toward IS that NT is slowing the growth of Unix as some organizations are now opting for NT when a few short months ago they would not have given it an consideration.
(It would be interesting to know what percentage of revenue is coming from NEW customers for UNIX-based hardware manufacturers, versus revenue from existing customers.)
>Nevertheless I still have my doubts about reliability
I remember when there were issues about Unix reliability and security. That is about where NT is now. Those problems with Unix were satisfactorily solved when major customers shook those systems down in real world, large-scale implementations, told the engineers about the problems, and the engineers fixed them. That is where NT is now.
(In my opinion, of course.) Additionally, third parties are rushing in with new products to solve the NT scalability issues.
Off Topic:
My wife, two adolescent children (at the time), and I lived in Bad Homburg, in the Taunus outside of FFM. My children attended FFM International School, where the population was 45% German and there were 42 countries represented. I was marketing to/supporting the US Forces and embassies in Europe.
As a family, we travelled extensively. We saw almost all of West Germany and were among the first Americans to cross the border into East Germany and travel unencumbered. We did NOT want to come back home! We found (almost) everything to be very agreeable with us, although we did have to go to UK about twice a year to decompress from the structure of the German culture (no offense intended--its just a cultural compatabilty thing.) But, I believe if one is to live in Europe, Germany is the place to be. I know that lots of changes have occured since we left in 1991 (as the Gulf War was cranking up--that's another story!)
Yes, I am in the process of relocating from Washington, DC, area (Maryland) to Georgia, where I cover a 7-state geographic territory. I am from Alabama, so I am coming back home, perhaps to stay. |
