[Info-vax] OT: IBM Offering $9-10 Per Share for Sun

[ChrisQ]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> ChrisQ wrote:
>> To get back on topic, Solaris runs very successfully on X86 and is 
>> arguably the most capable and fully featured unix around now. Added to 
>> which it's free to use. With all the open sources linux etc code 
>> running on Solaris, who in their right mind would want to run Linux 
>> anymore anyway, except to hack with, especially if you consider the 
>> support costs ?...
> 
> If you look out in the real world then you will see:
> - the number of Solaris system shrinking
> - the number of Linux systems exploding
> 
> Apparently a lot of people see it different than you.
> 
> Arne

Agreed - windows sells more than vms, which illustrates the point that 
technical merit rarely has mass market appeal unless it's also hyped 
through the roof. Linux was quite fashionable in corporate environments 
last year, but free to install and low upfront costs doesn't mean free 
to support. It's also getting overcomplex and quite opaque in terms of 
required libraries and god knows what else if you want to install some 
package or other. Don't know about vms now, but with Solaris, most of 
the stuff you need is there and you can have a fair degree of confidence 
that it has been properly regression tested when changes are made. Much 
in the same way as vms in fact. of course, none of this is cheap, which 
is why a quality product can never complete on price alone.

Solaris and Vms, though different in design, have similar technical aims 
and have had the same one company or product ethic for 20 years or so. 
Some may disagree, but they are both industrial strength os's, whereas 
linux is still fairly young. It's not in any way a criticism of linux, 
it's a good os, but if you had to choose for a critical application, 
based on technical criteria and a solid and singleminded development 
timeline, which would you choose ?.

I was quite sad hearing about the ibm takeover news, though it might be 
the lesser of two evils if compared to an hp takeover. sgi just filed 
for chapter 11, again and it's yet another example of the technical 
diversity of computing diminishing. Diversity improves the breed and is 
good for progress. If all is Intel, what progress is there other than 
what they decide to hand down to us ?. Fewer choices, more expense and 
probably less performance gain is my guess...

Regards,

Chris