Is Unix on its way out?

THIS WEEK IBM unveiled its Power7 processor and Intel introduced its 9300 range of processors, both fighting over the future of Unix.
While this battle has been interesting with both Biggish Blue and HP trying to club Sun to death, it is taking place as interest in Unix is dropping.
IDC had reported that 2009's third-quarter saw a 23.4 per cent fall in Unix server revenue, which seems to indicate that the market for these boxes is gradually falling.
It is possible to put this fall in terms of a general decline in corporate spending. After all, these are big expensive boxes and corporationd are not buying.
But Sun's problems, which ultimately led it to being bought out by Oracle, were related to the fact that interest in its Unix based SPARC is slacking.
It is not that the technological development has ended for Unix boxes. Biggish Blue's Power7 processor features as many as 8 cores, which run up to 32 threads. Also, the new offering is equipped with the latest memory optimization capabilities, which includes the capability to assign the on-chip cache to four cores, all the while turning the other four off in order to pull back power consumption.
All advanced enough. But at 41 years of age Unix is starting to reach the point that corporates are looking at it and sniffing a bit.
Unix has always had a problem in that its competing versions do not integrate, but now it is finding itself at odds with cheaper Linux and Windows on x86 commodity processors, which match up nicely.
Corporates are more likely to favour Linux as a host server platform, with Windows similarly growing.
This is not to say that Unix will disappear quickly but many corporates think it is set for a long, but gradual decline.
Linux has become the strategic 'Unix' rival to Voleware and while it does not have the years of development behind it, it is approaching and will soon equal Unix in performance, reliability and scalability.
A recent Computerworld survey suggested that the migration away from Unix will happen incredibly slowly. Of 130 Unix users among 211 IT managers, 90 per cent said their companies were "very or extremely reliant" on Unix. Slightly more than half said, "Unix is an essential platform for us and will remain so indefinitely." Only 12 per cent said that they were moving away from the ancient OS for reasons like cost savings and server consolidation.
However the cost of commodity x86 processors is dropping and almost everything a company wants can be found on Linux or Windows systems.
Systems builders coming to look at replacements are factoring Unix boxes out of the equation. For example, Cisco's Unified Computing architecture has everything working together without Unix.
Rather than looking like fighting for a prize, it is starting to look like IBM and HP are like vultures fighting over a dying man in the desert. If they win and Oracle has to switch off the Sparc programme it is unlikely that anyone will benefit. One has to wonder why the big companies could be bothered investing in R&D for such systems when fighting over their future seems pointless.

By Nick Farrell
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1591112/is-unix