No winner in battle over Unix and NT
For some, the battle for the hearts and minds of the client/server world is between Unix and Microsoft's Windows NT operating systems. For others, NT, although emerging quickly, is still a small player.
Unix giants like Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Digital are thinking about how to handle NT. HP and Digital have each decided that the only way to deal with NT is to join.
Digital is trying to promote the fact that it has Windows NT running on its Alpha chip - known for its technology but also considered expensive. Digital is also developing NT on the Intel platform, with lower priced servers running on Intel or Intel-compatible chips.
HP also jumped in with its NT offering and it claims to have the total office solution. HP can provide high-end servers running Unix, smaller ones running NT and a host of other computers for almost any purpose.
Recently, HP has been making strong claims about its ability to integrate an office that runs both NT and Unix. (The Gartner Group has said that nearly all computer networks in the next century will be mixed networks of Windows and Unix.) Sun Microsystems is the only top Unix company that has not jumped on the NT train. Sun's claim is that NT is simply not up to what Unix can do.
Sun's confidence is based on a number of things it has in its favour. Sun is considered by most analysts to be the number one Unix vendor. It has a near-monopoly on universities, engineering workstations and Internet service providers.
Apart from its excellent reputation, Sun also has Java, the language that is changing the face of client/server technology. Some people have said Sun did not need a NT policy because it had Java. Time will tell.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has certainly done a good job in selling NT to certain customers over the past year and NT has taken something away from the lower end of Unix.
Many people, however, are still sceptical that NT will replace Unix. Quite apart from its networking problems - it simply does not integrate as well with other systems, although it works fine on Microsoft-only networks - it is not as sturdy or as scalable as Unix.
Microsoft has also recently announced that NT will cost more. This could backfire on Microsoft, if consumers rebel.
Ultimately, however, it certainly looks as if there will never again be a single dominant force. Both Unix and the mainframe - getting an added boost from recent announcements from IBM concerning its new G4 machine - are here to stay, as is NT in certain situations. Many people will be quite happy to see this.
Although a company like HP could provide almost everything a large company would need, there is some hesitation on the part of clients to bet the house on one company.
Not only could that company suddenly raise its prices, it could find itself in difficulty and that would hurt the client as well.
This throws open the role of the system integrator. Sun, for example, has no NT policy, but a good system integrator could easily solve that. Both HP and Digital have tremendous capabilities in this area as well.
Digital, in fact, is one of the oldest system integrators and can put a mixed system together, made up of almost anything.
One of the biggest influences is going to be Java and the NC (network computer). Microsoft has recently announced that it will create J/Direct and the Microsoft virtual machine to make Java run not only 'better' on the Windows platforms, but it will support Windows- only APIs (application program interfaces).
This will be roundly condemned by Sun, IBM, Oracle and many of the companies that are big on both networking and the NC.
