Somers, N.Y. - Intel's endorsement of The Santa Cruz Operation's UnixWare as the premier Unix operating system for Intel processors can only help solidify the place of Unix in users' future operating system plans.
Intel has blessed an initiative, dubbed Project Monterey, that will lead to several new versions of Unix.
The first is a flavor of SCO's UnixWare for 32-bit processors from IBM and Intel that incorporates IBM DB2 and MQSeries middleware and is currently available. Future releases of this version will add IBM's AIX operating system technology.
IBM also will take current UnixWare technology and incorporate it into future versions of AIX to create a second flavor of the Project Monterey platform.
The third Unix operating system will be for Intel's IA-64 Merced processor, which is expected out in mid-2000. IBMand Intel have created a multimillion dollar fund to spur software development for this version of Unix.
"The net result is that this operating system is positioned to be the leading Unix operating system on the Intel architecture," says John Miner, vice president and general manager of Intel's Enterprise Server Group.
While SCO, IBM and Sequent are united behind this initiative, the biggest winners are users of Intel processors.
"Intel is billing this initiative as the premier Unix operating system environment to move to Merced," says Brad Day, senior analyst with Giga Information Group in Norwell, Mass. With Project Monterey, users will be able to choose from three versions of Unix, depending on the hardware architecture they have selected, and will have an increased variety of Unix software and applications.
Intel benefits from having "yet another operating system supplier pledge support for its platform," says James Gruener, senior analyst for NT servers at Aberdeen Group in Boston.
"IBM was one of the major holdouts with AIX. By now coming forth with this software . . . there could be crossover from customers who eventually move from the RS/6000 to IA-64," Gruener says.
Whether users will see UnixWare as an alternative to Windows NT depends on several things, he says. "There is the timing involved when 64-bit UnixWare arrives vs. when 64-bit NT will be available.
The second issue is that customers have to choose whether they want a Unix environment based on IBM's legacy AIX or Microsoft's NT, which has larger independent software vendor support," Gruener says. Further, he says that Microsoft may not have the background in 64-bit technology that IBM research already has.
Project Monterey would be further strengthened by participation of other vendors, such as Compaq and Dell.
Subo Guha, director of product marketing for Dell's Enterprise Systems Group, says, "The good news is that a lot of the enterprise-class Unix versions have been on Reduced Instruction Set Computing boxes. This announcement is bringing more robust Unix features to the Intel architecture."
While Dell won't commit to one Unix architecture over another, it will continue to support Unix features that run on Intel architectures.
A number of software companies, including Netscape, the SAS Institute and Novell, have also committed to delivering applications for Unix on Merced. Among the hardware manufacturers that will use the new Unix software are Acer, Motorola Computer Group and Unisys Computer Systems.
RELATED LINKS
Monterey overview
From SCO.
Linux Net Resources
Primers and other info on Linux.
Compaq deal enables UnixWare clustering
Network World Fusion, 8/19/98.
SCO chief looks to UnixWare 7 for growth
Network World Fusion, 8/17/98.
