“Every now and then, industry observers have to stick their
necks out and this is one of those occasions. No ifs, no buts –
Project Monterey may be nearing its release date, but it will
find that it has only a short life span. Why, oh why, I hear
you ask, is the flagship OS to be left by the wayside? The answer
is simple – Windows 2000 and Linux will make Monterey an
irrelevance.”
“…Linux has moved from academia to the mainstream, winning
mindshare as the commodity operating system that Monterey had
designs on becoming. The strength of Linux’s position is in the
fact that it has been ported not only to IA-64 but also to just
about every platform under the sun. Last summer it was already
being reported that Monterey consortium members, whilst remaining
bullish about Monterey on IA-64, were tellingly quiet about porting
the new OS to other platforms. The attitude to Linux could not be
more different…”
“Ultimately it will be the customer that decides, and it is here
that we are already seeing the last nails in Monterey’s coffin.
According to the Register on Friday last, Fujitsu Siemens already
has around 60 customers who are trialling 4-way Itanium servers
based on the IA-64 architecture. And what about the operating
systems the prospective customers are choosing? “Most users want
Windows 2000, others ask for Linux but hardly anyone is interested
in Monterey,” said a source from Fujitsu Siemens.”