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HOT SKILLS IBM's proprietary Unix dominates in terms of servers sold
What is it?
This January saw the 2oth anniversary of the release of AIX, IBM's proprietary Unix. HP may lead the market for high-end enterprise Unix, but IBM dominates in terms of servers sold. Having committed to Linux much earlier than its Unix rivals, HP and Sun, IBM is much further forward in supporting coexistence with the open source upstart. The "L" in AIX 5L stands for Linux affinity.
In late 2005, a survey of nearly 200 corporate Unix users by Gabriel Consulting Group gave IBM a supplier preference index of 105, with HP at 85 and Sun Microsystems at 80. Unix was seen as having superior system management, virtualisation and partitioning, but AIX was ahead in every other category, including quality, technology, features and the future. AIX's fortunes improved with the...