The way Unigram.X hears it from sources close to IBM Corp, we were quite right to question the longevity of the company’s AIX Unix a few months back (CI No 2,583). Our sources claim high up officials were indeed toying with what to do with the operating system, including a deep six option (six feet is the depth at which you bury the bodies to ensure the foxes don’t dig them up). Some of IBM’s largest AIX customers reportedly freaked at the suggestion that the operating system would go onto care and maintenance. This apparently pushed IBM into a series of actions to revive its Unix momentum. Whenever IBM has (on purpose or otherwise) tested those waters it’s gotten slammed hard by its large customers, the sources said, adding that IBM does listen to its customers, especially when they’re shouting obscenities over the phone. These same sources – AIX adherents, by the way – said IBM was wrong to deny our story. They told us it was probably the best thing that could have happened for AIX. As a result AIX is finally very solid, they said. Resources were thrown into doing customer debugs and other optimisation work. Now some of the effort is being re-focused on development of versions beyond 4.2. Audio, video and general multimedia features are the kinds of technology apparently being demanded. But the AIX team is apparently also poking around in Windows NT waters, eyeing with interest such things as the clustering work that Digital Equipment Corp and AT&T Global Information Solutions are working. Elsewhere, IBM folk with the real money such as the hardware groups are finally beginning to fund software development, including AIX, for customer-specific products such as device drivers that they cannot develop. As a result, the same sources said, the only thing that is likely to kill AIX now would be an NT end run. The hardware group reportedly has little appetite for all the operating system bickering, and will produce whatever will shift iron, witness NT and Solaris on PowerPC.
