Monterey may push IBM Unix users to Linux

Amdahl and IBM are at loggerheads over whether the Monterey Unix development is pushing AIX users to look at moving to Linux.

According to Amdahl, IBM's AIX customers are looking at Linux because they are nervous about AIX "not being supported in the future," said Tony Whalley, European PR manager for Amdahl.

Whalley said that customers who are both IBM and Amdahl shops have told Amdahl that "they are not too clear about Monterey. They are moving away from AIX [as a result]."

Big Blue's Unix operating system, AIX, is at the heart of Project Monterey, which will marry the PowerPC Unix language with the Intel based Unix languages from SCO and Sequent.

Adam Jollans, European marketing manager for IBM software on Linux, disagreed with Amdahl's assertion.

"We've found the opposite," he said. "Linux is competition in the low to medium end in the Intel space - it's challenging Windows NT."

Jollans added: "AIX is strongly supported. We are committed to Project Monterey, the port of AIX and SCO to Intel's IA64."

Peter Lemon, IDC analyst, said that Amdahl and IBM "both have a point."

According to Lemon, Amdahl is correct in assessing that some users are nervous about IBM's roadmap for AIX.

"Some corporates are wondering about AIX," he said, as IBM is shifting AIX to a new platform by porting the AIX core kernel to Monterey.

"They are concerned about where IBM's focus will be if it chucks its best ideas into Monterey. They get unnerved and look elsewhere," he said.

However, he does not think they are looking at Linux for the high end. "Where we see Linux right now is at the low-end Intel space," said Lemon.

But as Linux is improved, IBM admits that it could step into AIX's old shoes.

"Today the high end [of the mid range] is owned by Unix," said Jollans. "In the future Linux clustering could put Linux in that potential space, but AIX will move on and there will be a new high end."

Amdahl's commitment to supporting Unix is stronger in Europe than the US, according to Whalley. It has two support engineers in the UK and two in Germany. Linux enterprise support is now available through Amdahl's enterprise help desk which will be cloned in the US.

"No prices are to hand," he said. "Support will be tailored to customers needs."

Amdahl is also evaluating putting Linux on the mainframe. "We have a pilot project looking at Linux on S/390," said Whalley. "Linux is an extremely reliable operating system and the most reliable hardware around is the S/390. There's a lot of interest."