Things are changing, but the future still seems foggy.  For example, yes you
can get support from IBM for Linux, but what happened to JAVA?  Just a few
years ago, IBM was betting the farm on JAVA, especially on the AS/400
platform.  Now everything is Linux.  They seem a little fickle.  If
Microsoft succeeds in marginalizing or destroying Linux like they did JAVA,
will IBM punt again?  Can you make a decision today on Linux and know that
you are betting on the platform of the future?  I don't know but I love
Linux anyway.

Application development is the big factor in all of this.  All of us admins,
programmers and analysts have our "religious" preferences and allegiances to
platforms such as MPE, but it is applications that drive the choice of OS
and hardware platform in the business world.  A case in point:  I am head of
IT for an insurance firm.  We used the 3000/Image/Cobol platform for several
years, home-growing our own policy processing system and database.  However,
when our business exploded exponentially in the late 90's, our home grown
system wasn't going to cut it in light of new statutory/statistical
reporting requirements that were being placed on us.  The choice was made to
buy a packaged system that had become the de-facto standard in our industry.
It runs on an AS/400.  Did the board care that MPE was a wonderful, robust,
stable, secure and seasoned OS in which we already had a substantial
investment?  Not for a second,  and rightly so.  They expect all enterprise
level operating systems to be able to perform their needed function.  It is
the almighty application that matters.

I for one am thrilled at IBM's new obsession with Linux, but I am skeptical
because of the way they handled JAVA.  FWIW, I hope to have Linux running on
a partition of our iSeries box in the near future.  As it is, I already use
Linux heavily and have been doing so for almost four years.  We are a small
to mid size company and the importance of "free" cannot be overstated.
Rather than the endless treadmill of Microsoft upgrades and license
rip-offs, I have opted to replace MS SQL Server with MySQL, IIS with Apache
and ASP with PHP.  We have been rewarded with better performance on mediocre
hardware, greater stability, better security and we have saved tens of
thousands in licensing fees.  The amazing thing to me is that the free
documentation for the aforementioned Linux platforms is way better than what
MS *charges for*.  We have been able to develop solid backup and disaster
recovery plans for our Linux systems.  Paid support is available but we have
never had a need to use it.  We have easily recovered from crashed drives,
etc. in the past.  MySQL is simply wonderful, even though it lacks some of
the capabilities of the big name DB's.  It makes up for it in speed and
compactness.  Keeping your data secure and backed up is a breeze.
Administration is also a breeze with free tools like PHPmyAdmin.

As mentioned by another poster, the development tools on Linux continue to
improve.  If critical mass is achieved and more and more big name companies
port their apps to Linux, look out.  Say good bye to HP-UX, AIX and who
knows, maybe even OS/400.  If God smiles on us, maybe we'll even get to say
good bye to Microsoft.

I just wish there was a way to load Redhat on my 979-400......it would
scream!


Cary

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