“In its typically quiet yet productive fashion, IBM is
readying its next-generation Unix, AIX 5L, for an April release.
The name alone indicates that the new version marks a radical
departure from the current AIX 4.3.3: The L stands for
Linux.”
“Financial and government IT operations are two of the most
likely places to find AIX, followed by health care and e-business.
Each of these areas is seeing increased adoption of Linux as a
front-line system in IT operations. Linux is no longer just a
developer’s playpen, and, for starters, AIX 5L’s Linux support
means Unix shops will have a much easier time attracting developers
and support staff, from a far hipper and bigger pool than was
previously available.”
“Although Sun positions itself as the Unix leader, IBM expects
to beat Sun to market with Java 2 Version 1.3 support in the OS and
in its plans to offer an improved Workload Manager utility that
supports disk I/O management in addition to familiar CPU and memory
management features. Solaris currently lacks the ability to manage
disk I/O, which can be an important way for IT managers to improve
performance of Web-critical applications and allow more effective
exploitation of unused server capacity.”