“The new IBM products are part of a strategy to surround Sun on
all sides. The effort includes IBM’s pending acquisition of Sequent
Computer Systems, with technology to run either UNIX and Windows
software.”
” ‘This is a very aggressive set of products,’ industry
consultant Andrew Allison said in an interview. ‘It positions IBM
well, particularly in price performance. It will cause Sun
pain.’
Allison said Sun is in a position to drop its prices to stay
competitive. But to meet performance levels of the IBM lineup, Sun
would have to upgrade the architecture of its high-end system,
which could take until the middle of next year.
‘There is likely to be a lot of pressure on Sun for the next
several months,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect a dramatic shift,
but the IBM share of the UNIX server market will increase. It’s a
significant step forward for IBM.’ “
“The RS/6000 B50 and a companion Intel chip-based Netfinity
server are compact and designed for managing tasks like Web
hosting, messaging, Internet security, directory services, and
electronic commerce. It runs on IBM’s UNIX system, called AIX,
or… the Linux operating system.”