A rival purveyor of Unix once disparagingly described Sun Microsystems’ invitation to OEMs to support Solaris as ‘I am Scott: follow me’. That may be true, but Robert Hoog, a member of the executive board at Siemens Nixdorf Informationssyteme (SNI) explained earlier this week why it was that flavor that most appealed to his company’s palate, so much so that it announced its adoption as SNI’s choice of Unix-on-Intel for the coming IA 64 architecture (CI No 3, 398). Santa Cruz Operation’s Data Center initiative (CI No 3,355), in which OEMs Compaq, Unisys, Data General and ICL are bankrolling the development of a 64-bit version of the company’s UnixWare, was not an option, as this is not a joint R&D effort, nor are we funding Unix development. Hoog said SNI wanted a partner with financial stability, in other words, one that could fund its own Unix roadmap. That left Digital Unix, HP-UX or Solaris, and in the first two cases, the problem was, essentially, the same. That is to say, both proprietors are active in the high-end server market, so that adopting their Unix would have made it more difficult for SNI to differentiate its own offerings in that segment. Sun, meanwhile, is not a player in the high-end segment, despite its ambitions for Enterprise 10000. In addition, the Intel chip is not, currently, central to its business, Solaris’ preferred vehicle still being Sun’s own Sparc chip, at least for the time being, while the only other major OEM in the Solaris-on-Intel camp, NCR, is far more a niche player. SNI should thus be able to differentiate its products nicely from the competition on Intel chipsets, particularly if, as the agreement unveiled Monday proclaimed, the company negotiated a deal with Sun whereby certain key features of its own Unix flavor, the 32-but Reliant Unix, will be incorporated into Solaris for its purposes. All well and good, but cynical observers ask for how long that situation will persist. They argue that, with Sun strengthening Solaris-on-Intel, it is only a question of time before it also moves upmarket, into the higher end where SNI operates. Could you resist a market opportunity like that? asks Jerry Crook, vice-president for pan-European operations at Data General, which has thrown its lot in with the SCO camp.
