By Timothy Prickett Morgan
The Monterey/64 variant of Unix for Intel’s forthcoming Itanium (aka Merced) processors being developed by IBM and Santa Cruz Operation got another big feather in its cap on Friday when database and application software powerhouse Oracle Corp signed up to port its software products to the operating system.
As part of the deal, Oracle and IBM will also prop up Oracle’s Internet Directory – an implementation of LDAP with Oracle’s look and feel – on AIX 4.3.3 and Monterey/64. Oracle said the port will be available by the end of this year for AIX, and will ship with the other Oracle products for Monterey/64 next year. The two also said they would work together to push open standards as well as enter into a series of joint marketing programs.
While porting to Monterey/64 is no big deal – about 80% of the code in Monterey/64 comes straight out of IBM’s AIX 4.3.3 for its RS/6000 servers, which Oracle already supports – having Oracle stand up and say it will be pushing Monterey/64 as one of its tier one platforms certainly makes all the difference in the world to IBM and SCO. In the Unix world, according to Oracle’s Michael Rocha, senior vice president of platform technologies, tier one means Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and its offspring, Monterey/64, and Tru64 from Compaq. Tier one also includes Microsoft’s Windows NT Server and Windows 2000 Server and IBM’s OS/390, of course.
Going forward, it is these environments that Oracle will focus on supporting, having its databases, ERP and CRM applications and development tools available with each new operating system release as they come to market. The point is that Monterey/64 gains as much credibility from Oracle – the number one database vendor and number two ERP supplier – signing up as the project did when Intel and Compaq jumped on board. Rajiv Samant, general manager of Unix at IBM, puts it succinctly. Oracle is going to help propel Monterey/64 to a whole new level.
While Compaq’s commitment to Monterey/64 was seen mostly as a means to capitalize on its vast installed base of SCO Unix customers and to preserve its high-end Alpha server business, Oracle seems to be positioning itself to jump into a revenue stream when it starts trickling in the second half of 2000. Ironically, Oracle putting its weight behind Monterey/64 and helping to make it a success may be just the thing that cracks Tru64’s back. And it’s not because Oracle isn’t devoted to the former Digital’s platforms. Oracle bought the relational database business from Digital Equipment years ago and got its start, and a lot of its early business, on DEC VMS machines, so it will probably remain committed to Tru64 even if Compaq’s commitment seems at times to be waning. Tru64 will be an Alpha-only operating system, and if it doesn’t grow, Oracle could eventually withdraw support on it. But probably not any time in the near future, not so long as Oracle thinks it can make some money supporting it.
But there were some hints that this might be possible. We are going to expand our leadership in the Unix marketplace, says Oracle’s Rocha. We are very excited about consolidating Unix installations onto Intel servers running Monterey/64. By that we presume he means consolidating SCO users onto Itaniums, but it could turn out to be Tru64 users running Oracle applications, too, depending on how hard Compaq pushes Tru64 and fights to preserve its base.
