I get really annoyed when I see stupid comments like "proprietary and Unix boxes to x86 machines running Windows and sometimes Linux". How on earth do you qualify Windows as non-proprietary? Where are the open specifications that it adheres to? Why is UNIX (note the correct capitalisation of the trademark) considered proprietary when there are a multitude of open standards from POSIX and the OpenGroup?

I just wish that journalists (always assuming the Register is using real journalists for articles like this rather than odious bloggers like Ted Dziuba) would actually take some time to get their facts straight.

Pedantic? me?

I think Solaris 9 was the last version with OpenWindows...

IBM Unix maintained leadership with 37.2% share, up 3.5 points YTY

Sun lost 2.6 share points in 2007, barely remaining #2 with 28.1% revenue share

HP remained #3 with 26.5% revenue share

Looks like the whole Unix marketplace is moving to IBM Power.

Here at eRacks Open Source Systems, our 4Q 08 sales were not only stronger than ever, but up significantly - in October and November, in the middle of the economic bloodbath, we had the strongest 4Q showing in years.

The economic climate is changing the question IT departments are asking, form "Should we consider Open Source?" to "When do we get started?".

We see this trend continuing: http://eracks.com/press/090211

Joseph Wolff

CEO and Founder

eRacks Open Source Systems

www.eracks.com

Unix is proprietary because you cannot run HP_UX on Sun gear, AIX on HP Itanium platform, etc.

i.e the hardware and network operating system (NOS) are a tied purchase.

Windows is a proprietary NOS, but it's not tied to the platform of a single manufacturer. You can buy any X86 platform from HP, IBM, Sun, Fujitsu, Dell, NEC and 500 other server manufacturers and run the NOS on the platform. Secondly, it is a defacto standard across the planet, established as a standard and known quantity by virtue of its commonality.

Moving an app from HP_UX to Solaris or from Solaris to AIX requires a recompile. Many of the tools, file systems access etc are distinct, beyond the original POSIX compliance.

No, I don't work for Windows (and I run Linux at home myself), but there is a clear differentiation between standards based servers (i.e Intel-AMD x86-64 platforms) and Unix.

Some of this is due to the economy, agreed, but I also have to think that a lot of this is due to the consolidation to virtualized platforms (VMware, Xen, HyperV). It's my experience that customers are doing more with the same amount of gear, repurposing older boxes and squeezing more onto new kit.

Paris, because she likes doing more, repurposing and squeezing.