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List:       opensolaris-discuss
Subject:    Re: [osol-discuss] OpenSolaris cancelled,
From:       Orvar Korvar <knatte_fnatte_tjatte () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2010-09-08 10:17:25
Message-ID: 548406134.201283966276352.JavaMail.Twebapp () sf-app1
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How is that nonsense?

IBM has said OFFICIALLY they are going to kill AIX. When IBM say so, is it nonsense \
of me to repeat what IBM said? How is it nonsense? In fact, it makes very sense to \
repeat what IBM say. Actually, it is nonsense to reject IBMs own official statements. \
In other words, it is you that talk nonsense.

When Linus Torvalds said that "Linux is bloated" and I repeat that - am I talking \
nonsense? 



Regarding POWER. AIX runs on POWER, yes. What happens to AIX if POWER dies? Then AIX \
probably dies too. IBM is not interested in porting AIX to x86. Why would they? Then \
they can not charge outrageously high prices for AIX. When people can compare AIX \
prices on x86, to ordinary x86 vendors - they will be shocked.

And yes, POWER has a bleak future. It will die eventually. x86 is today almost as \
fast as POWER7, for a fraction of the price. The biggest POWER7 machine has 64 \
sockets. Intel Nehalem-EX scales to 256 sockets. Earlier, POWER and SPARC crushed \
x86. Nowadays, x86 is getting so much resources it has the fastest development pace. \
It will very soon beat POWER (Sandybridge and Bulldozer is soon out, and next next \
generations are soon out long before POWER). 

x86 and POWER: they are competing in the same territory: few heavy weight threads. \
x86 will win this race, there is too much money in x86.

x86 and SPARC: x86 has won in terms of performance

x86 and Niagara: Niagara has found it's niche and wins in multi threaded work loads. \
Niagara T3 and T4 will rock the boat and no other cpu can match Niagara in its niche.

Ergo, POWER is dying. AIX will die too. Then it makes sense for IBM to shift to \
Linux. IBM just tries to milk the cow as long as possible. When x86 outperforms POWER \
(or gives equal performance) for a fraction of the price, there are no reasons to \
stuck with ultra expensive slower AIX gear. POWER will go the same way as Itanium \
goes. Itanium is soon dead too - too slow and too expensive. POWER will soon be the \
next Itanium. And of course, SPARC will also die. But Niagara will give far more \
performance than any other cpu, so it might live.

Only way POWER and SPARC can live, is if they give much higher performance (not \
likely as x86 is catching up) or if they are cheaper than x86 (not likely, because of \
the mass volumes of Intel and AMD).

Solaris runs on x86, so it will live. AIX will die. As a coincidence, IBM has \
                officially said that "AIX will be killed in favour of Linux on x86". \
                Make your bets.
-- 
This message posted from opensolaris.org
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