@A.C
So IBM does not have to have a public roadmap, but the other Unix vendors must have? Why? Oh, you are refering to the IBM executives that officially has said that AIX will be killed off? Ok, now I understand. That makes sense.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/application-development/2003/01/29/ibm-linux-will-replace-aix-2129537/
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POWER6 was 10x more expensive than x86 gear. POWER6 was considerably faster than x86 cpus.
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POWER7 is only 3x more expensive than x86 gear. POWER7 is 10% faster than the new Intel Westmere-EX, according to anandtech benches:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4285/westmereex-intels-flagship-benchmarked
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The next gen IvyBridge 22nm Intel cpus will be considerably faster than today. Some say 30% faster. IvyBridge will be faster than POWER7, at a fraction of the price.
Future Intel cpus are catching up on POWER very fast, and is today already able to compete with POWER. POWER8 might be the first POWER cpu to be slower than Intel x86 cpus. This means IBM have to continue to lower the price on POWER8 servers. The margin is gone. Why should IBM spend loads of money to develop a slow POWER cpu? Why not use faster and cheaper x86 cpus?
That will be point when AIX will be replaced with Linux. This will happen. IBM has said that officially. I dont see the point of developing POWER, and believe it will be killed too. Just as the "superior" IBM CELL has been killed (because of bad performance) - POWER will be killed off too.
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Ergo, the reason IBM has no public roadmap is because AIX will be killed off, and probably POWER too.
But dont worry, Allison Park, you will have work in the future. When IBM kills off AIX and also probably POWER, IBM will continue to support them for at least 10 years more. So you will continue to have work too. After that, you better start to learn Linux if you want further employment.
On the other hand, Larry is committed to Solaris and SPARC. On it's niche, Niagara is much faster than x86. x86 will be faster general purpose cpu, yes. But Niagara is a niche cpu and will thrive in the niche. For general purpose, Solaris runs fine on x86. AIX does not exist on x86, and it will not be ported to x86, because IBM will stop development of AIX in the future. No point in spending money on porting AIX to x86 when AIX will be killed.