HPUX to LINUX ??

[f. halili]

Hello everyone,

I attended a technical conference this week and during one of the sessions there's one guy ( attendee ) that told the class that HP will soon be moving from HPUX and go to LINUX. Is this true?

thanks,
f. halili

[Rick Garland]

I heard this about AIX. AIX is going away, IBM is going to LINUX with AIX extensions.

Have heard nothing about HPUX. My 1st opinion would be NO since they invested bucks in upgraded hardware and capabilities

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

I think this is a perception of a indivisual & nothing else. HP is still selling HPUx & lanching new releases which should be the case if they plan to stop the product in near future.

Devender

[f. halili]

go HPUX!

[Mel Burslan · Accepted solution]

I agree with Rick on that. This move can only make sense for IBM as they are the ones sticking to their guns by lining up all their resources behind Linux and not updating or uprading the AIX line which was subpar compared to solaris or hp-ux to start with.

But if you look at the leaps and bounds of achievements linux accomplished in its short existence in the market, how much sense will it make for any commercial unix developer to enhance the flavor they are going with, i.e., solaris for sun and hpux for hp ? Solaris started open sorcing itself caving to the pressure from Linux.

In my opinion: HP, for the time being, has the upper hand for its better performance when it comes to number crunching or heavy transaction processing, thanks to HP's roots being in the scientific research (prior to Carly that is). But again, if Linux makes some inroads to grid computing which will dwarf any single server's capabilities in any kind of application platform, how much longer do you think anybody would be willing to pay outrageous maintenance costs to HP for licensing hpux, where there is a viable and cheaper alternative ? Not too long. And if there are no customers, no product development will take place for sure.

Linux' dominance over any unix platform or even on the Redmond's finest is inevitable. All it matters is time. Otherwise why do you think any M$ spokesperson speaking in any conference pooh-poohs linux or hiring "independent" analyst firms like Gartner to proove that their offering is better than Linux ?

[All of the above is my personal opinion by the way, which is dependent on data from the last decade and understanding of basic financial concepts. Nothing more !:)]

[f. halili]

more comments are appreciated. want to read more from all of you. i'll assign points tomorrow....

[Alan Meyer_4]

Maybe HP has tipped it's hand as well with the support of PA Linux http://parisc-linux.org/release-0.9/index.html

[Devesh Pant_1]

F.halili,
I don't think HP-UX is going away. If at all it is getting stronger and even more matured. There has not been any announcements on the roadmap for any changes.

thanks
Devesh

[Duncan Edmonstone]

I think the important thing to remember here is that companies don't terminate off cash cows - and thats what HP-UX is for HP - they make A LOT of money out of it. Never mind the technical arguments, companies are ruled by their shareholders, not their engineers - so as long as HPUX makes HP money it will still be araound - that's why OpenVMS is still around - cos its basically a great OS that makes HP money!

Want another example? 15 years ago when commercial UNIX was just starting to bite into IBM's mainframe business, all the self important opinion-makers and analysts (like the chap at your conference - and most of the IT press I might add!) were stating 'this is the end for mainframes'. Spool forward to 2005 and IBM *still* makes vast amounts of cash from their mainframe business (annuity-wise a lot more than they make from their x86/Power business), and the mainframe shows no sign of going away.

There's too many opinionted people in the IT world (like me for instance!) who will base their statements on what they read in a few industry rags, or what a competitor tells them. We should all look for *empirical evidence* before beleiving anything we're told by these sorts.

OK Rant over!

Duncan

[Donald Kok]

As long as there are enough paying legacy-owners, HPUX will stay. These decisions are mostly made by managers, not by techies.

Personaly I dont care, since I administer both OSs ;-)

[Pete Randall]

Personally I believe that HP-UX will be around for a long time. That said, however, it wouldn't be the worst thing to go to Linux, either. The problem I have with Linux is the hardware it runs on. You buy a recent model PC and then struggle to get the drivers to make Linux work on it. It's a royal pain that would be elminated if HP was providing the hardware and that hardware was consistent. In that case, I could live with Linux!


Pete

[David Child_1]

I believe HP will (smartly) take a dual-approach. They will keep HP-UX around, but will also invest in making sure they can deliver quality Linux solutions. This way they can deliver to all types and sizes of businesses.

David

[dirk dierickx]

What he means is probably that linux will be eating a lot of market share away from HPUX (and other unix versions), and HP is already providing Linux on all of their platforms (x86-32/64 and Itanium) and supporting it. It wouldn't be a surprise if in the future (or perhaps already) HP is shipping more Linux then HPUX.

[Paul Clayton]

Being in the Telecom software market, our clients are very large HP-UX users, and our major dev is done onn HP-UX. AS our users rule our development, we would have seen already panic in this market space if HP was to drop HP-UX. So it looks like rumour as one of our esteemed colleagues has said previously.

[f. halili]

thanks everyone!