InfoWorld: In AIX 5L, blue suit meets tie-dye

[ Thanks to kgeffert for this link. ]

Microsoft is coming after Unix, says this writer, with Win2k and the Itanium. He says IBM's AIX5L, a Unix with Linux affinities, is properly positioned for the next step, with enough of a Linux feel to bring up a new generation of developers who'd otherwise avoid Unix:

"It used to be that the only game in town for serious computing below the mainframe level involved one variety of Unix or another. Various factors entered into companies' decisions as to which Unix to use. Hewlett-Packard and Sun both have die-hard followers, but IBM's advantage has always been its large installed base of mainframe customers, for whom Unix boxes are strictly midrange systems.

Frankly, all flavors of Unix are about the same when it comes to management tools. It hardly matters whether the user interface is presented as a command line, a set of character-based menus, or even a point-and-click X Window application -- the end result is something less than intuitive.

Unix vendors had better wake up fast because an 800-pound gorilla is breathing down their necks, and he's wearing a Microsoft giveaway shirt. With the advent of Windows Datacenter Server and Intel's long-awaited Itanium processors, Microsoft is finally ready to enter the big-stakes world of 64-bit computing, and it's bringing a lot of momentum to the table."

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