In a survey of 110 enterprise system managers, Input Inc found that about a quarter of them intend to replace proprietary machines with open systems in the 1996-1997 timeframe – and over 50% of the respondents want to replace them by the turn of the century. As we suggested in CI No 2,904, growing awareness of the Year 2000 problem is accelerating the trend. Many companies are waiting for Windows NT 4 rather than putting Windows95 on their desktop computers. Unix acceptance continues to grow, despite competition from NT. Sun Microsystems Inc, IBM and Hewlett continue to supply the most popular widely-used server systems. The report, Client/Server Software Product Directions, is available from Input, which gave no price.
