chipguy,
And that work often involves huge investments in
apps, middleware, and organizational methodology tied to
OSes like HP-UX, Tru64, OpenVMS, and NonStop OS.
That is true, but most of the software vendors who sell products to these niche markets have ported their products to Windows NT and its descendants, and now for Linux on x86s. A lot of the legacy high end stuff was purchased at time when PC centric architectures did not have the capabilities to compete in those markets. As you know, PC processors have taken the leadership in performance.
The argument about being tied to the old OSs is only partially true. My argument is that this segment will continue to shrink, as its former participants jump off, and join the standard x86 market. Now that the x86 market is full fledget 64 bit capable, there are even fewer reason to stay behind.
And Solaris's importance has been in serious decline for years as its fate has been too tightly bound to SPARC's decline.
Yes, and the beneficiary was the x86 market. Many software vendors rewrote their wares for x86 market, and there was no longer reason to pay more for Sparcs and get less.
Solaris on AMD64 might have been an important win for AMD but
1) Sun still seems strangely fixated with SPARC in the enterprise computing realm, and
2) Solaris on AMD64 *is* Solaris for IA-32E.
Sun is finally getting that the niche they were in innevitably shrinking. They are trying to get out of there. Thinking behind Itanium doesn't get it, and is leading people into another dead end niche.
Sound like PC-centric myopia to me - all those IT types just itching to throw off the chains, ditch the pocket protector for an ipod, and play UT2004.
You make it sound like ability to run all kinds of software imaginable is a liability. No, it is an asset.
Joe
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