Unix Won't Be Muscled Out By NT

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February 10, 1998 (12:00 AM EST)

By Lee Pender,

Although Windows NT is gaining momentum, it will not extinguish Unix as a high-end operating system for at least several more years, according to analysts speaking at the Giga Information Group IT Research Exchange conference.

Rich Fichera, vice president of Giga, said Unix and NT will continue to co-exist until Microsoft can prove NT 5.0 is a stable product capable of performing as a high-end OS.

Jack Crawford, senior vice president and chief information officer of the Hartford Insurance Group, in Hartford, Conn., agreed that NT often does not meet enterprise scalability requirements. "That is the issue that has got to be fixed," he said.

The move to NT is being fueled largely by non-technology executives caught up in NT's marketing hype, Fichera said.

Robert Kiebel, new technology architect at Service Merchandise, in Brentwood, Tenn., said the move to NT within his organization has been spurred primarily by IT staffers who say they need NT to run certain applications.

Kiebel said Service Merchandise is moving to NT, but will continue to run mission-critical applications on the Unix platform.

Fichera also said NT's move into the high-end space might be slowed by Microsoft's own desire to capitalize on the potential high sales volume in other market segments. "The Microsoft financial engine is fed by the low end," he said.