Can IBM Digest the UNIX Server Trifecta?
Last year, IBM and HP ripped Sun’s UNIX business to shreds. This year, IBM is hoping to give HP the same treatment. The UNIX market is shrinking, and IBM must be thinking there isn’t enough room, or enough money, for both of them. It’s dog eat dog in the UNIX market, and while HP is no poodle, IBM is a very large and aggressive mutt, indeed. It’s only a few weeks into 2010, but already things are beginning to heat up. IBM’s announcement on Monday that it is launching four servers based on its spanking-new and ultra-powerful Power7 chip is the company’s way of declaring to the world it has every intention of consolidating its position as top dog in the UNIX world. HP is not ready to roll over and submit, though, and it is pinning its hopes of thriving in the UNIX market on a new weapon of its own: Integrity servers based on the latest Itanium 9300 series chip, also announced yesterday. (Of course the new Itanium is Intel’s, not HP’s, but HP’s HP-UX systems account for the vast majority
