From: dlparker@dlpinc00.rn.com (David L. Parker)
Subject: Re: IS UNIX DEAD?
Organization: Automated Data Management Services
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 12:00:07 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.151617.21158@compu.com> fr@compu.com (Fred Rump from home) writes:
>dansmith@Autodesk.COM (Daniel Smith) writes:
>
>>	C'mon guys, the Unix pie isn't that big to support so much
>>in-fighting.  At the moment, it looks like a slice of lemon, cherry,
>>blueberry...  Think of this:  if just 10% of approximately 100 million
>>DOS users switch to NT in the next three years, that's what, a bigger
>>slice than any of the existing Unix vendors? any two or three of them
>>put together?
>
>Somehow that thought process is pervasive thruout computerland. But why?
>
>Is it because most people think you must sit in front of a computer in order
>to use it?  How many users are there on the typical SCO system for example?
>
>One OS, one box - maybe 10 users?
>
>Take the 600 or 700 hundred thousand SCO licenses out there and multiply. And 
>that's only SCO. Add all the minis from everybody who run UNIX and then add 
>the workstations somewhere at the end. The workstations like SUNs are the 
>smallest quantity of the bunch - but they represent big bucks to SUN as they 
>are expensive.
>
>So SUN has what, 2 billion in sales? And SCO has 160 million. But they are 
>nowhere equal in actual number of users.  SCO is much bigger in that regard.
>
>If I can recall correctly bith have roughly the same number of UNIX licenses 
>out there except that SCO hangs lots of terminals on theirs and SUN stands 
>alone.
>
>So 10 million NT users are nothing to brag about just yet. By then the number 
>of UNIX users will certainly also have grown. 
>
>fred
>
>-- 
>W. Fred Rump 	office:	   fred@COMPU.COM     'mans feet have grown/so big 
>26 Warren St.   home: fred@icdi10.compu.com  that he/forgets his littleness'
>Beverly, NJ. 08010                          		Don Marquis 
>609-386-6846    bang:uunet!cdin-1!icdi10!fr   

But how many of those are people who actually buy a computer themselves for
home use?  Some of those people undoubtedly have a dumb terminal hung off an
SCO box at work, and have MS-Windows at home.  Or a System 36 or even a 32
at work and DOS or Win. at home.  

I think the point (and I'm sure I'm probably missing one or more) is not
so much which will rule (was that even the original point?), but what will
happen when (not if, when) significant numbers of people get to make their
own comparisons between NT and the various new flavors of UNIX (whether it's
4.2 or a polished, commercially competitive linux, or whatever).  If NT lives
up to it's potential (not hype, but potential - it is based on the Mach 3.0
kernel, right?, and Billy'$ billion$ have apparently hired some pretty fine
programmer$) then NT will be a factor in the UNIX world and not just something
for the UNIX cognoscenti to look down their noses at - as in lot's of NT
"power users" running NT workstations hooked up to UNIX servers.  The SUNs
and dumb terminals won't disappear, but the ancient minis will.  

Just the incoherent ravings of a caffeine-stoked news addict.
-- 
Dave Parker
Automated Data Management Services, Pleasant Hill, MO 64080-1331
(816) 987-5167/5218 voice/fax