Hi Eric. I'm real curious on that one. Also you may ask why am I posting this:
======================================================================
Gates paints rosy picture of
Windows NT overtaking Unix
By Rob Guth
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 12:32 PM PT, Dec 10, 1996
TOKYO -- Reflecting on the proven ability of the PC to shrug off
attacks from all challengers, Bill Gates in a keynote speech here
Tuesday predicted the device's complete dominance over the Unix
platform.
The keynote at the Windows Solution show in Japan coincided with
the shipment of the Japanese version of the Windows NT 4.0
operating system. In his speech, Gates characterized NT as one of
the engines that is helping the PC steamroll Unix.
"PCs are now invading the Unix [workstation] space," he said. "Up
on the server level, the same thing will be taking place over the next
several years."
The attack is an ironic reversal of days past when all companies
involved with Unix tended to dismiss the PC, Gates said.
"When the PC came along, there were a lot of people who thought it
would never be successful -- it's too low end, it's not robust enough
-- and they really underestimated the power of the microprocessor
and the power of software standards."
Windows NT is already taking off as a Unix server replacement,
according to Charles Kelly, president of the Worldwide Association
of NT User Groups.
"We are hearing from our users that they are replacing Unix servers
with NT servers," he said. "I think a lot of it comes down to a dollar
comparison -- how much money does it cost us to set up a server?"
But while Microsoft has done a good job of bolstering Windows NT
in the areas of fault tolerance and file and print sharing, "the two
places where Unix wins are years of proven performance and
scalability," said John McMains, senior enterprise systems engineer at
Network Computing Solutions, a Raleigh, N.C.-based systems
integrator that does half of its work in Unix. "If you're talking about
major gigabyte databases -- that's where Microsoft has to conquer
next."
Gates acknowledged that scalability is one of the biggest challenges
facing NT but touted the operating system's forthcoming clustering
technology know as Wolfpack, which the company says will allow
different systems to share disks or to connect across a common
network. Clustering, said Gates, "is the last idea of mainframe
computing that's not available on the PC."
To win the confidence of users who need Unix-like scalability from
NT, Microsoft is planning in the first half of next year to showcase an
NT-based system that supports hundreds of gigabytes of data, Gates
said.
"We're going to show that with off-the-shelf PC server technology
[and] with Windows NT, managing many, many terabytes of data is
not only inexpensive, but easy to set up." Gates did not disclose any
further details about the plan.
The Internet will drive demand for systems that can support such
colossal collections of data, as businesses discover that they need to
store vast amounts of information collected through their Web sites,
he said.
Gates also pointed to the Internet as one of several emerging
technologies that detractors said a year ago would render the PC
obsolete. He alluded to a movement to develop network computers
as cheaper and easier-to-maintain devices.
Although Gates said that future PCs will take on a multiplicity of
forms, computing devices without hard drives will be a rarity because,
as limited-function devices, such clients will overload both servers and
networks.
In addition, Gates threw some doubt on one of the keystones of the
network computing proponents: the Java programming language.
"Java is a great addition to the choices of languages, but we just don't
think that anyone is going to learn a new language overnight," he said.
Microsoft can be reached at microsoft.com.
Rob Guth is a Tokyo-based correspondent for the IDG News
Service, an InfoWorld affiliate.
======================================================================
Well, the answer is, quite frankly, to really get Joe Marengi pissed off!
Joe <I know, I would be.)
PS: Can they follow the roadmap? ........ They don't have a choice! |
