mozek,
MSFT should quit while they're ahead: stick to selling word
processors to secretaries & games & spreadsheets to home users.
They are clearly out of their league in corporate
computing. It looks like MSFT is the one that got "blown away"
by SUNW's Enterprise 450 (SUNW's lowest-end server):
J. Crew Selects Enterprise 450/Solaris over NT
sun.com
Clearly Superior to Windows NT
In the process of selecting a new workgroup
solution, Hansen considered both Windows
NT and UNIX alternatives.
"I was surprised how much Microsoft cared
about winning this business," he said. "They
were beside themselves trying to convince
me that Windows NT was reliable, scalable,
and so on. But you can't get around the fact
that their core operating system simply isn't
that stable. I have yet to see a Windows NT
server that doesn't get re-booted frequently."
Sun, on the other hand, builds availability features into all its
products-from the reliability of the SolarisTM operating environment
to the high-uptime RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability)
features of its servers and storage systems. "Even Sun's workgroup
server has more built-in availability features than high-end servers
from other vendors," said Hansen. "The Sun Enterprise 450 has two
separate device bays on two separate controllers, so you don't
lose your data if one component fails."
In terms of scalability, said Hansen, "there is no way Microsoft's story compares with Sun's. With Sun, you get near-linear performance
scalability as you add servers and storage, and you never have to
touch the operating system or recompile the applications as you scale
up. The same software runs across the entire Sun server line."
Hansen also noted that Windows NT servers do not scale well to accommodate different tasks. "You need separate machines for separate
tasks," he said. "Mail, DNS, SQL server, calendar server-with
Microsoft they're all individual machines; with Sun, they're all in
one box."
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