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Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SemiBull who wrote (11033)	6/6/1998 7:17:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14631

>>>Is this a prediction of the death of UNIX<<< No, not at the high end. NT isn't even close to doing a good job of multiprocessor computing except where Sequent has worked on it in their proprietary way, and even then, it doesn't scale the same way, IMO. And not at the low end, where Linux lives. Unix will continue to be widely used. >>>or where the growth is near term?<<< This is the key thing. There is growth in UNIX client seats, but slight, and mostly invisible, as web servers and such. The exception being Linux, which is wildly popular, but since it is nearly free, encourages an environment where databases are also nearly free (web server and RDBMS are included in the package, in fact), and so may not help IFMX or MSFT either. However, between OS2, various mini and workstation Unix's, Linux and now the reportedly excellent BE OS, there is a good spread of competitive products again, and I believe that eventually NT, which seems internally to be the piggy de tutti piggies, will top out and MSFT will have to shift emphasis to some other OS, perhaps already in development if they are smart. The paying growth area in servers will continue to be NT for at least one or two more years. Lots of shops will have both, and if you are a third party vendor you need to support both with tools, apps, and databases across the spectrum. Otherwise the client company starts to have that 'stuck in one platform' sinking sensation. The Informix bridge of Unix and NT could be the escape plan for clients afraid of being stuck in MSFT entirely. However, this only works if you can hire people. Right now it's pretty hard to do that. MSFT has been heavily promoting SQL Server training anywhere from 1200 bucks down to free for five years, judging from the stuff I get in the mail. So they have really leveraged the start that Sybase gave them under NT (previously OS2.) I think most NT DB folks are only marginally aware that the NT IFMX offering exists. I for one have no idea what features it has. Does it have datablades? Does it do multiprocessor NT? Don't ask me. I have never been mailed a damn thing about it, and I am pretty public about this stuff, have been an IFMX VAR, and have worked with their sales dept to bring them into clients to try to make sales. You'd think they would at least send a product summary. (Hey folks, wake up!) Have a nice day, Chaz