Hewlett-Packard Co was chuckling away to itself yesterday after DEC and Sequent Computer Systems Inc’s Unix tie-up about how, in its view, Sun Microsystems Inc’s Solaris on Intel OEM initiative seems to have come to a shuddering halt at the second hurdle. It thinks Sequent chairman Casey Powell’s comments – see news in top story section – clearly validate the gulf between the two Solaris versions – no matter how much Scott [McNealy] insists they are the same. HP thinks DEC’s commitment to a long term strategy for Digital Unix on both Alpha and Intel is going to cause the same headache for ISVs as Sun’s approach. They are being asked to support two Digital Unix binaries long term since there is no binary compatibility between the RISC and IA-64 versions. It suspects ISVs aren’t going to bite. If there are 4,500 ISVs that support Unix on Alpha, at best probably only 10- 20% of them will even consider the Intel version (about the same ratio as for the two Solarii [sic]). And furthermore says that since ISV enthusiasm for Digital Unix is already fading fast during the Unix consolidation phase, Digital Unix on Intel may be a complete no show from an ISV perspective. It’s also intrigued how DEC is going to be able to afford to invest in developing and supporting Digital Unix on two platforms given its shrinking hardware volumes – even when you count in Sequent.
