Quote:
Originally posted by Undertoad
Y'know what, it won't matter in a few years; Linux will take the place of all the proprietary Unixes. It's happened at IBM, it's happening right now at Sun, and HP won't be able to stem the tide.
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Sun currently sits in a no win, defensive position. IBM will successfully port numerous Sun based systems onto single mainframes which drastically cuts overhead. Overhead is currently the primary target of any server farm that expect to be competitive.
Basically, an IBM mainframe is really nothing more that an odd number of single chip computers assembled on a hybrid wafer sharing other support functions such as a dedicated encryption processor. Even more interesting, should any one processor fail, spare processors on the hybrid pick up the load without any external indication or failure. This is but one of many hardware features that makes IBM mainframes now so competitive to Sun's 'too many servers' solution.
From the other side, Sun is being eaten alive by the PC world. Their position (based upon proprietary MIPS technology) would have been worse if Itanitum had not stumbled on a major architectural defect. Sun are in the same position of Germany in WWII Africa - with Montgomery on one side and Patton on the other. Which competitor is more dangerous?
Previously, minicomputers would eat the low end market from the mainframe business. IBM will successfully reversed that trend at Sun's expense.
Selling AMD based PCs is only a rear guard defense against the PC industry. Sun must confront IBM to survive - or discover new markets. Sun's position in not enviable. Currently they must do too much in house. Furthermore, Sun has yet to really decide - Solaris or Linux. That indecision only worsens Sun's current position. They will have to make a decsion soon or suffer.
One great advantage for IBM is that their worse problem - incompatible hardware - has been solved by Linux. Going 100% to Linux was a no-brainer for IBM because of that hardware legacy created by MBA educated management John Akers and his predecessor. Linux solves a company wide problem created over 20 years ago by those MBA managers.