Industry

c|net: Linux on mainframes enters phase 2:

What we see IBM driving is the open operating system on top of proprietary hardware and trying to lock customers into the old proprietary-hardware game," said Martin Fink, general manager of Hewlett-Packard's Linux Systems Operation. HP advocates Linux running on Intel servers, which are available from many companies.

As Gartner puts it, "No exit upgrade path for the hardware to the z900 exists," so those who use Linux on mainframes had better be committed.

They don't understand. What's the exit upgrade path for Intel hardware? for SGI hardware? for Sun hardware? for HP hardware? The lock is not the hardware. The lock is the applications. Applications drive the purchase of an operating system, and that drives the purchase of the hardware.

2:07:14 PM #
categories: Industry, System Administration