HP's Linux OS Alternative Gets a Face Lift

"Sun's UNIX ecosystem was thrown into turmoil following the company's acquisition by Oracle. A big question mark remains over the future of Solaris and OpenSolaris server operating systems. In contrast, IBM and HP, the other two big enterprise UNIX players, have been plodding along steadily, hoping all the while to pick up disaffected Sun customers quicker than they lose their own to Linux implementations.

"Let's focus on HP. Linux leaves the company in a rather tricky situation. That's because HP is a big fan of the open source server software -- it's a phenomenon too big to ignore. But it also sells UNIX, so it has to be careful not to cannibalize its UNIX sales by promoting Linux too hard. In other words, HP's UNIX and Linux staff must push their respective lines of business without unduly dissing their opposite numbers.

"That's why Suzanne LaForge, an HP-UX marketing big cheese, picks a fine line when she talks up the relevance of UNIX. Talking about HP-UX on a webcast last month she had this to say:

"UNIX is on the rise in terms of deployments in data centers ... despite the death knell that the analysts predicted in 1993. Linux is a terrific OS, but there is a time and a place. Data center mission-critical converged infrastructures is the time and place for UNIX."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• HP Elite 7000 Microtower review(Mar 12, 2010)
• HP Mini 5102 With SUSE Linux: A Real Business Netbook?(Jan 12, 2010)
• H.P. Working on �Half-Pint� Android Tablet(Jan 11, 2010)
• HP ProCurve One : Linux Based but Does it Matter?(Nov 19, 2009)
• Hewlett-Packard to Acquire 3Com(Nov 12, 2009)
• HP Servers and Ubuntu: Read Between the Lines(Jun 18, 2009)