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To: Pierre-X who wrote (43569)	1/2/1998 8:23:00 AM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 186894

Good Morning Peierre-X, Article... All Roads Lead to Merced... January 2, 1998 PC Week via Individual Inc. : When sun struck its deal with intel to bring its solaris version of Unix to Merced, it was another vote of confidence in Merced as a 64-bit microprocessor standard. A careful study of the situation will show that it was also good news for the IT management community. The knee-jerk reaction of the casual observer might have been that Sun was abandoning its own 64-bit UltraSPARC architecture and had surrendered in the microprocessor wars to the Intel juggernaut. In reality, Sun's support for Merced is more of a hedging action. Solaris has been available on Intel microprocessors for some time. The new agreement simply assures that will continue to be the case. Meanwhile, Sun has no intention of ceasing work on UltraSPARC, which assures that users of Solaris will continue to have a 64-bit microprocessor choice. That's good. There aren't too many OS platforms that maintain serious development efforts on multiple hardware platforms anymore. Windows NT, for example, started out as a multiplatform operating system--on Intel, MIPS, Alpha and PowerPC. Only Alpha remains, and it's hardly mainstream. Further, the increase of OS competition on a common platform--Merced--is praiseworthy. Merced, far from being the exclusive preserve of Windows NT, will be a platform for Solaris, HP-UX, Digital Unix and others. And analysts such as Michael Goulde of the Patricia Seybold Group, in Boston, say Solaris will run on Merced before Windows NT will. This competition promises a lively battle for enterprise server supremacy. Microsoft cannot count on the cost advantage of Intel as the trump card that will make up for the not-ready-for-prime-time scalability of NT. Instead, Microsoft will have to keep its nose to the grindstone until all of the enterprise features it has promised for NT are delivered. IT managers will retain the prerogative of choice among operating systems on Merced. However, if Sun is less than fully committed to making Solaris on Merced as strong as Solaris on UltraSPARC, then microprocessor choice will be a hollow promise. It's likely that Solaris running on Merced will be a little easier to use and a little faster than the current version of Solaris on Intel, but it still will probably suffer from usability flaws and a lack of third-party driver support. A full commitment would mean lining up independent software vendors for the Solaris-Merced platform. Funneling them to Solaris-UltraSPARC instead would mean there would be little meaningful choice. And claiming that Solaris is available on different CPU designs would be a bit like the infamous bait-and-switch trick of shady retailers. Whether Sun is truly committed remains to be seen. But Sun may find it must be committed to survive. Sun's biggest competitive challenge is the higher cost of its SPARC hardware compared with Intel platforms. The main reason for that is volume--Intel can sell its chips for less because it makes so many more of them than Sun does SPARC. So Sun may find itself forced--despite its desires--to wave the Merced flag enthusiastically. Here's hoping Sun puts its weight behind Solaris on Merced. _____________________________________________________________________ Regards, Michael