Traditional Unix vendors are nervously looking over their shoulders at
the encroaching Windows NT juggernaut.
There is little dispute about the mark Microsoft Corp. has made over
the past four years in the PC LAN arena with its NT Server. But now, with
NT largely accepted as a viable alternative to competing network operating
systems, such as Novell, Inc.'s IntranetWare and IBM's OS/2 Warp Server,
Microsoft has set its sights on the more robust market space currently
owned by Unix.
Unix vendors have reacted in different ways to NT's coming of age. It
has ignited fierce competition among some players. For others, it sparked
the motivation for better NT and Unix integration tools. And still others
have established partnerships with Microsoft that give them a 'popular
little brother' system that compliments Microsofts more mature, high-end
offerings.
This coexistence has resulted in NT and Unix systems that run
peacefully on the same network, giving customers the opportunity to mix and
match machines based on application choice and cost.
No matter how Unix vendors have chosen to view the NT phenomenon, they
do agree on one thing: NT's success, which last year registered 85% growth
over 1995 sales, does not signal the demise of Unix.
'The tide is coming in and lifting all the [NT and Unix] boats,'
says Scott McGregor, senior vice president of The Santa Cruz Operation,
Inc.'s (SCO) server products.
'The notion that one is beating out the other here just isn't the
case. It's not a zero-sum game. The whole market is growing,' McGregor
says.
According to research by International Data Corp. (IDC) in Framingham,
Mass., NT shipments rose from 393,000 in 1995 to 725,000 in 1996. Likewise,
Unix server shipments grew 13% from 535,000 to 602,000.
'Unix is moving upscale to bigger and bigger enterprise-class
solutions, while NT is gobbling up the low end like Pac Man,' says Dan
Kusnetzky, director of IDC's Unix and client/ server environments.
Robert Henson, manager of IBM's AIX marketing, predicts the majority
of NT revenue through 1999 will be realized through its continued adoption
as a low-end entry server.
'There are things that Unix does today that NT cannot even touch,
like run reliably on large configuration systems in enterprises that need
24-by-7 up-time,' Henson says. 'CIOs make investment decisions on that
type of availability. NT has just not proven itself in that regard yet.'
Reliability, scalability and ap-plication support is the one-two-three
punch vendors say will keep Unix in the enterprise.
Unix runs on symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) boxes that scale up to
64 CPUs. It has supported clustering for more than five years now. In
comparison, while NT can handle four-way SMP servers, industry tests show
that scaling beyond that does not yield any further price/performance.
On the clustering front, Microsoft will not deliver its NT-based
clustering technology, code-named Wolfpack, until this summer. The first
iteration will provide only two-node failover.
'We have all of the mission-critical applications working in our
favor,' says Steve McCay, vice president of Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s
Solaris Product Group. 'CIOs won't buy NT if it doesn't support the
applications they need to run their business.'
Sun's Solaris, IBM's AIX, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s HP-UX and SCO's
UnixWare support upward of 12,000 business applications each.
HPs Vice President of Computer Systems Dick Watts said the Unix
operating system can be tuned to get the most from every application.
Tunability that lets a customer get the best performance from his apps
is a point for Unix, Watts says.
The final Unix advantage is platform support. Whereas Mi-crosoft has
committed to supporting NT only on Intel Corp. and Digital Equipment Corp.
Alpha boxes from this point on, Unix continues to run on those platforms as
well as on MIPS, PA-RISC, PowerPC and many others.
Market reality
In addition to outlining why Unix will always have its place in the
enterprise, most vendors understand that they must be able to play in mixed
NT and Unix networks.
SCO, IBM and Digital have all made considerable headway in NT/Unix
interoperability.
SCO ships add-on software that makes its Unix servers handle file and
print services as if they were NT boxes. SCO is also standing behind
Microsoft's effort for an Internet file system standard for storing
distributed data across NT and Unix machines.
IBM has structured its entire middleware strategy around supplying
software that runs across NT and its OS/2 Warp Server, Unix and mainframe
systems.
'We have more middleware that runs on NT than Microsoft does,' says
Jocelyne Attall, IBM's vice president of NT marketing.
While IBM will always push its own operating systems first, Attall
says that should a customer choose to go with NT, IBM will still sell them
middleware.
Digital offers a program, called AllConnect, that provides integration
software and enterprise service and support for allowing HP-UX and NT to
coexist on the same network.
AllConnect is a result of Digital's long-standing NT-based partnership
with Microsoft. It comprises everything from working together to tune NT to
run on Alpha machines to Digital reselling NT alongside Digital Unix and
supporting both in its worldwide service and support programs.
HP recently worked out a similar agreement with Microsoft. HP was
criticized for doing so by other Unix vendors that viewed the move as a
lack of committment to the Unix platform.
Watts contends that HP is as committed as ever to HP-UX, and that the
new partnership puts HP in a good position to have more control over how
and when NT gets sold into its corporate accounts.
'We do not intend to position NT as an enterprisewide,
mission-critical backbone operating system with anything like the breadth
of HP-UX,' Watts says. 'Each has its appropriate place in the network,
and we will make sure that HP-UX maintains its place.'
Industry observers note that HP-UX and several other flavors of Unix
are going to maintain their position in the network for some time to come.
Forrester Research, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., surveyed IT managers of
large global companies. 76% say they will continue to buy both Unix and NT
well into the future. Only 24% plan to standardize on NT.
But as NT begins to creep into the Unix space, vendors will be
fighting for shrinking market opportunities. This 'Unix squeeze' will
likely force many players out of the market, according to Forrester.
Forrester predicts Java will keep Solaris alive and electronic
commerce will give AIX a boost. It also predicts SCO's current hold on the
Intel Unix market will further allow the company to supply the operating
system to hardware vendors such as NCR Corp. and Data General Corp., which
now maintain their own flavor of Unix.
Despite the Unix consolidation NT may precipitate, Unix is expected to
be around for the long haul.
'Well after the year 2000, the world is still going to be largely
heterogeneous,' Kusnetzky says. 'Unix is not going to be dead any time
soon.'
