Server OS Landscape Rolls With the Punches

"Boring and predictable it most certainly isn't, and that's not good news for enterprises that want a background of stability and certainty when choosing a server OS to power their business.

"If you're a Sun UNIX user you know what I'm talking about -- the OpenSolaris project recently evaporated after months of uncertainty, to be replaced, perhaps, by something based on the Ilumos project like the OpenIndiana spork. Solaris users haven't had as rude a shock: Their enterprise OS hasn't actually disappeared, but they have had to come to terms with the fact that the UNIX now belongs to Oracle and it is being developed along lines very different from the ones it had when Sun was at the helm.

"You also know what I am talking about if you've come into contact Novell, the company behind Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), one of the two leading open source server distributions. It's a fine server OS, to be sure, but being owned by the chaotic Novell has cast a long shadow over the distro, even if Microsoft has been pumping money into the business by subsidizing its customers to use it. SLES users were plunged into uncertainty at the beginning of the summer when Novell effectively put itself up for sale, and quite who the owner of Novell's Linux business will be in a few months time is anyone's guess."

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