Guest Editorial: Andrew Guidroz II

by Andrew Guidroz II

Published 1999-10-14    Printer-friendly version

I'm just sitting around thinking.

So much of my work in the computer business is spotting future trends for my company and customers. Who will be the next big player in the operating system business? What languages will be dominate? Which companies will direct the technology advances of the next 20 years in the computer business?

Microsoft has dominated the desktop environment for some time now. But we're beginning to hear rumblings from other players in the market. Linux is beginning to gain mindshare and marketshare although the majority of the activity is on the smaller server range. Sun is rapidly gaining mindshare and marketshare in two distinct areas. One is the high end server market. The other is in the use of the Java language.

Now, on the language side, it is obvious that even Microsoft is hearing the threat from Java. Recently, top managers at Microsoft have publicly talked about how they've forgotten the development community and how they need to refocus on that area. They've also made large investments in Inprise, the former Borland. Why would they do this? Isn't Delphi a competitor to Visual Basic? I believe it is to keep major players who provide tools which are dependent on the Windows API in business. The Windows API dependency is the key to Microsoft's domination of the industry.

Sun's Java language promises platform independence: there are no Windows API strings attached. But this also promises Sun platform independence. You are no longer tied to using their Solaris as your foundation to use their technologies. On the operating system side, Solaris still is one of the biggest players for huge shops. NT is there also but in larger numbers, smaller applications. Solaris seems to be used as a single machine solution whereas NT is used as a "machine for each application" solution.

Where is Linux in this equation?

Linux sits on the fringes. It moves into a shop to do some small task at first, like e-mail or web hosting. But, gradually, it does perform larger tasks. Most shops that I see it in have multiple Linux boxes, just as they have multiple NT boxes, each doing a separate task.

Linux also is the "open source" operating system. This means that the source code used is open for all to see and you are even welcome to enhance it for your own use. This part of the picture has the other players nervous.

Microsoft's reaction has been to announce that they are considering releasing portions of their operating systems to the development community, although nothing has been seen yet. Microsoft has also funded benchmark testing of NT vs. Linux and even posted a page describing the "Myths of Linux". They surely see Linux as a direct competitor.

Sun has announced a modified open source plan to release some of the Solaris source code. It isn't nearly as far reaching as the one Linux falls under but is a step in that direction.

I can understand Linux vs. Microsoft and I can understand Sun vs. Microsoft. But what does this really mean about Linux and Sun? Nearly everyone I know who is doing things with Linux isn't touching Java at all. They are using PHP and CGI and all those wonderful server side things that were designed by operating system geek for operating system geek. And they like using C++ because they like to get down to the metal of the machine.

Java creeps in because of you and I. We are programmers and we want the robustness and insulation of a real programming language. We've worked at the client side and want to leverage some of the same power we have had there onto the server side. Does this mean that Sun and Java and Solaris are rivals to Linux? Well, Java does run on Linux so, although the majority of Linux folks aren't using it, it doesn't mean that new programmers on the platform are not going to use it. Solaris is positioned toward the high end and Linux toward the lower end.

But I feel there are intrinsic differences between Sun and the Linux community that make them very nearly competitors. Torvalds, the man who began the Linux revolution, made light of Sun's latest open source efforts just a few days ago. And certainly Java's platform independence implies independence from all operating systems, including Linux.

Who wins? Who has the solution? I'm not certain it is an either/or solution. I have many different servers running in my shops with applications written in many different languages. This is as fragmented as I have ever seen the computer industry. That, to me, is the key point.

The industry will probably never go back to having a single dominant company. Microsoft may or may not still reap the lion's share of the earnings but other companies will have a tremendous amount of input as to the direction of computing.

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Andrew Guidroz II, when he isn't traveling around the countryside watching his 2004 National Champion LSU Fighting Tigers, writes software for all facets of the insurance and finance industries. His famous Cajun cookouts have become a central feature of Clarion conferences throughout the U.S. Andrew's Cajun website is www.coonass.com.

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Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942