LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Glen Turner <glen.turner@aarnet.edu.au>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 12:09:05 +0930

Re: Rise of Windows & non-event of Linux???

James Mclean wrote:
> 
> http://www.it.mycareer.com.au/opinion/philipson/2001/05/29/FFXDMMWJANC.html
> 
> What can I say, but this was the best laugh I had all day...
> 
> What a crock.

Come on, take the man at his word.  There really is a survey,
it really says that IT executives believe that Windows XP
will run the data center over the next five years.

That is all reasonable.  Executives of any colour aren't
known for seeing trends that rise up from the trenches.
A few years ago, every IT executive in the SA unis belived
that Unix would die and be replaced by Windows.  Now some
of them believe that Linux will grow up and supplant the
propietary Unix and that Windows will only get a look-in
where it is the only application that will run the required
application.

University IT executives live in a culture that tolerates
dissent, looks towards the new, and has a strong involvement
with the Internet.  Now let's think about IT executives in
banking and finance :-)

What is wrong with the survey is the assumption that the
beliefs of IT executives drive purchasing.  That there *is*
a five-year long plan for phasing out that mainframe and
replacing it with Windows.  The truth is much more complex,
with hardware capacbilities, database vendors, middleware,
staffing and application availablity all having large influence.

The quote

    Rob O'Neill says: "In two years' time Linux may be running
    the primary school network in Wollongong, but you can bet
    what's left of your tech-stock portfolio it won't be running
    the steelworks down the road."

has it wrong.  There is every chance that the software that controls
a steel mill will run on Linux.  And every chance that the steel
mill won't care, as it bought the application Steel Mill Controller 3.2
not giving a hoot that Linux came with it (beyond the assurance
that Linux was a capable and supportable OS).

The reason that there's every chance of Linux being used
in vertical applications like steel mill control is simply
that Linux is friendlier towards vertical developers than
Windows: both technically and in licensing.  Remember,
after Unix escaped from Bell Labs it was developed by AT&T
for use in their major vertical application -- PBXs.

That friendliness towards vertical applications is also
what gets Linux into the door of the primary school.
Primary schools won't run Linux -- they aren't known
for numbers of Unix sysadms.  But they might run e-smith
because it's cheaper and easier to configure than a
Windows server.  Do they care that e-smith runs on
Linux?  Not much.

Finally, Linux is suffering from a PR problem with the
data center.  When people say "Linux isn't ready for the
data center" they are comparing Linux with MVS or Solaris.
And Linux has a way to go.  There's no storage management,
no process partitioning, poor accounting.  But Linux has
already come a long way -- XFS is a HSM-friendly filesystem,
hot swap PCI and hot swap SCSI, RAID, LSM, Fiber Channel,
every vendor has a clustering solition.  And it's well positioned
for the future -- all mentions of code on the iSCSI list
have involved Linux.

But Windows XP isn't being assessed against MVS or Solaris,
it's being assessed against Windows 98.  And in those terms,
it's certainly the OS you'd want to use for your Windows
applications.

In short, we have faith that the work of volunteers and
self-interested companies will see Linux develop to
exceed the capabilities of Solaris and rival that of
MVS.  And when it does, the exciting thing is that those
capabilities will also be available to Linux running
on a PDA.  Then as well as PDAs having the CPU grunt
of the mainframes of the 1980s, they will also have the
software smarts.

Banking IT executives see Linux now and don't appreciate the
huge growth in functionality that occurs in the OS.  Every
Red Hat release is 10% better, the rarer Windows release is 50%
better.  The improvements in Linux creep up on people, whereas
the improvements in Windows are strongly marketed.  Linux
still has it's original road map (let's build a free POSIX
system, tuned for use on the Internet) whereas the Windows
road maps are changed with fanfare every few years.  Guess
which gets more of the press that IT executives read :-)

So the survey is right.  Shame the questions are wrong.

-- 
 Glen Turner                                 Network Engineer
 (08) 8303 3936      Australian Academic and Research Network
 glen.turner@aarnet.edu.au          http://www.aarnet.edu.au/
--
 The revolution will not be televised, it will be digitised

-- 
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