I alway hesitate entering a discussion on OS's because there's no winning the discussion. And quick comments get one into trouble!
I'm not being trying to be glib about "enterprise applications" by talking about 100's of thousands of apps elsewhere. I simply feel that safety in numbers is an appealing concept to a lot of technology buyers.
Believe me, I've lived there - been there, done that. Worked for a competing UNIX vendor and danced with glee over the Sun OS to Solaris migration debacle. Sold and implemented many million dollar systems to run "enterprise apps".
At this UNIX vendor they too had something on the order of 13,000 applications documented in a "Solutions Handbook" and made available to a sales force. You can cull out half of those I bet (speculation on my part). Smaller VARs and ISV's that are moving their apps to other platforms; apps that are no longer being supported; apps that are no longer needed. True, and especially true for Sun, engineering apps are a strong spot for UNIX workstation vendors, but everything I read sees this is a market in decline.
I strongly believe in the right tool for the job. Having said that, I'm seeing a strong trend away from UNIX. As a solution architect I'm finding more often than not these days that NT is playing a significant role in apps - certainly at the workgroup level; and often at the corporate or "enterprise" level. Many times a UNIX platform is being relegated simply as the box on which a database run, and often not for performance, but because there is a legacy investment. Just my experience... your milage may vary.
Last, with the Y2K issue finally coming on strong in many organizations I'm finding that more and more clients are less concerned about the architectural purity of a solution than they are with getting the job done. For all its frailties, the MS platform allows for a lot of productive work to be done, quickly. I wouldn't build a space shuttle control system on NT, but I would build an accounting system or a reporting system or a document control system or a field data capture system etc etc etc.
Yes, UNIX is still growing, but it aint the party it once was.
Cheers
Michael |
