Unix has realised that it must enter the mid-range
server market, to ensure it doesn't get bitten by the Linux
penguin, says Simon Moores.
When, at the end of January I predicted the appearance
of a new Unisys ES7000 Server, which I nicknamed Fatbird, I didn’t
quite expect the company to plan a raid on the mid-range server
market to coincide with the arrival of Windows
Server 2003.
I’m reminded that it’s almost exactly two years since I attended an
analyst briefing at the Unisys ASP 2000 centre of excellence in
Paris. It strikes me that at the time that the world was a rather
different place, as the ES7000 was very much pitched towards what
many of us believed might be the next big thing - the expanding ASP
sector - which Unisys viewed as a natural home for its Big Iron
Windows Mainframe Servers.
I’m sure Unisys would rather forget about those days in Paris and,
at the time, the Meta Group’s cynicism over the company’s
datacentre strategy.
Today, the ASP 2000 Centre no longer exists and neither do most
of the first-to-market ASPs, who saw their future disappear down a
very expensive blind alley. Unisys has, however, persevered with
its longer-term Windows Mainframe plan.
Although the company appears, to me at least, to be rather more
successful in shifting managed services than its highly specialised
and expensive iron, it’s well placed to take advantage of the
promised power-to-weight ration of Windows Server 2003, now adding
the middleweight, Aries and the larger Orion, modular, 4-to-32
processor systems; "best with" Windows Server 2003 when it
appears.
Unisys, unlike its more eclectic rivals, is more sensitive to
"penguin creep" in the midrange server market from different
flavours of Unix. Unlike Hewlett-Packard and IBM, Unisys is
entirely wedded to the future of Windows in the datacentre and the
company, with its new spring server collection, is now deploying
variants of its powerful Cellular Multiprocessing (CMP) server
technology, intent on capturing mid-range market share with its
expandable Windows mainframes.
Not everyone is convinced by the news of the second coming of
Windows Server 2003. The Meta Group returns, once again to cast a
shadow over Unisys’ bubbling enthusiasm for Windows.
Rakesh Kumar is quoted as saying that Windows 2003 has no chance
of squeezing Unix out of the datacentre, commenting: "The lack of
dynamic partitioning and virtualisation technology in Windows 2003
is a significant handicap."
Even the Butler Group aren’t really convinced, with one analyst
announcing “Windows 2003 does not start to catch up with Unix in
terms of availability and manageability”, describing its failover
clustering as more “junior” than Unix.
The most damming statement of all describes HP-UX and Solaris
systems as having made more progress than Windows 2003 in terms of
being able to reconfigure servers without rebooting.
So where does this leave Windows Server 2003 on a Big Iron
platform? With the product still not available, all we have to go
on are the analysts’ opinions, which suggest a confidence gap
between what it promises and what it can actually offer in terms of
total cost of ownership, scalability, reliability and raw
processing power.
This leaves me with a sense of déjà vu. It’s 2003 and Windows still
appears to be struggling to match Unix, if you believe the
analysts. This is a serious business for both Unisys and Microsoft,
tied firmly to each other in a marriage of convenience in the face
of intense competition in a market segment where both companies
have still to establish a truly exploitable beachhead.
What evidence, I wonder, will encourage businesses to reject old
reliable Unix to flirt with Unisys and its new big iron servers on
Windows 2003?
Will Windows ever find broad acceptance as true alternative to Unix
or will Unix, which still refuses to die quietly, ultimately have
the last laugh in the datacentre?
What do you think?
Would you choose Windows Server 2003 over Unix?
Tell us in an e-mail >> CW360.com
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Setting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of leading industry analystDr Simon
Mooresof Zentelligence.
Acting globally, Zentelligence (Research) advises
governments, suppliers, business and the media on the evolution,
application and delivery of leading-edge technologies and
specialises in the areas of eGovernment and information
security.
For further information on Zentelligence and its research,
presentation and analyst services visitwww.zentelligence.com