OS Wars: Unix vendors prepare to take on Windows XP

Microsoft could have quite a battle on its hands, writes Barbara Morgan...

With its ship date fast approaching, Windows XP may be the OS garnering most of the headlines. However, traditional Unix vendors are not standing idly by as the Microsoft juggernaut slowly moves forwards. They are devoting significant resources to advance clustering, scalability and security capabilities in their next versions of the operating system. The pending advances stem from an industry effort to go head-to-head against the Linux and Windows operating systems. While Unix grew from 54 per cent to a 57 per cent share of overall operating system revenue in 2000, market research firm IDC reported Linux accounted for 27 per cent of new worldwide operating system licenses in 2000 and Microsoft captured 41 per cent. The vendors are creating more robust versions of Unix that they claim will provide mainframe-like stability in the next generation operating systems. IBM, for example, claims to have put AIX ahead of Sun Microsystems' Solaris and HP's HP-UX systems, by making 64-bit Java technology available on its AIX 5L Unix operating system. While Sun has acknowledged it has similar technology currently in beta, IBM is currently offering a free download of its AIX developer kit, Java 2 Technology Edition, for AIX 5L. Rod Adkins, general manager of IBM eServer, said the free download will allow customers to create and run 64-bit Java applications using the APIs in Java version 1.3. Adkins also said the 64-bit Java code "provides a new level of scalability for data-sensitive operations like large corporate databases and scientific computations, which require access to large amounts of memory". Similarly, IBM's AIX 5L allows for building and managing both Unix and Linux applications. With this release, IBM said AIX gains APIs and header files that allow Linux applications to run on AIX with a simple recompilation. The operating system also offers support for systems with up to 32 processors and 256GB of memory. Analysts say the industry should be paying careful attention to how the recently announced merger of HP and Compaq will affect each company's products. "We expect broad Unix [HP-UX and Compaq's Tru64] integration claims, and both vendors have already committed to Intel ports," said Jack Gold, an analyst at the Meta Group. "However, we believe the result will be about 80 per cent HP, trying to leverage HP-UX's stronger support among independent software vendors, and about 20 per cent Compaq, including Tru64's best-in-class clustering capabilities," he said. In the interim, Compaq's Unix customers have launched an intense attack on the company. A sample posting from Compaq Unix user forum, Tru64.org, includes one user who said: "I am truly a Tru64 fan, the only Unix I use, but now I wouldn't recommend anyone to invest in Tru64. It will definitely die." Another user posted this email: "The winners in this merger won't be HP or Compaq, who don't seem to realize that a merger where a huge percentage of your products and employees duplicate each other is NOT a good thing. It will be IBM and Sun who will win out on this." One industry expert, Terry Shannon, author of the Shannon Knows Compaq newsletter, said right now Tru64 is the best Unix on the planet. The imminent Tru64-HP-UX integration is another story, he said. "I believe that Tru64 Unix will be the primary beneficiary of the architectural transition," Shannon said. "Tru64 has made some very significant advances in clustering, scalability and single system image support." According to Shannon, Compaq recently announced a slew of Tru64 Unix-related improvements, including Oracle 9i support, online CPU add and remove capabilities, and low-cost clustering. Security is another plus for Unix, he reckons. "In the last 11 months Win2K has earned 1872 CERTS security alerts and Tru64 earned 80 advisories in five years," he said. He explained if the vendors of what he called "real" enterprise operating systems pointed this out, "folks might get the message". Moreover, as the merging companies sort through seven operating systems - including HP-UX - an HP spokesman said during a conference call that the company "is not giving roadmaps as to what's going to happen with Tru64 or HP-UX". He said the companies would not make any announcements until plans on customer transition are in place. Still, the most recent operating system, HP-UX 11i, includes support for Nokia's Wireless Access Protocol (WAP), intrusion-detection capabilities and support for internet-related products such as Apache Web server. HP-UX 11i runs up to 256 CPUs while HP-UX 11.0 supports a maximum of 128 CPUs. The operating system, which runs on HP's PA-RISC and Intel Itanium processors, will run native Linux applications on 64-bit Itanium servers without recompiling, when they become available. HP is also expected to add Mobile IPv6 support for wireless devices and introduce 32-way clustering to its upcoming release next year. Unix market share leader, Sun, is also upgrading its offering. The company has released an update for Solaris 8, its version of the Unix operating system, which the company said can distribute web pages faster and is easier to manage. The update also includes an improved Live Upgrade feature that lets an update take place on a separate partition of the hard disk while the computer is still running. What's more, Sun plans to beta test this autumn its next version of Solaris, which includes support for Jini, a Java-based technology that connects web applications together and delivers network services. Solaris 9 will feature improved availability and manageability features for its new UltraSparc III-based line of servers, which includes the successor to Sun's E10000 server - the Starcat - and optimisation code for Oracle's middleware. However, it's the end of the road for Unix pioneer the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), which makes two popular versions of Unix. It will not be introducing enhancements to its Unix offerings, as the company has been acquired by Linux vendor Caldera Systems. Caldera said its strategy is to move SCO customers to Linux over time. Until the migration occurs, Caldera will offer Linux as a low-end operating system with SCO's UnixWare as a high-end alternative. It seems that however successful XP, Microsoft won't have everything its own way.