NT skills boost as Linux divides Unix
Employment research finds professionals opting for Windows.
For the first time, expertise in Windows NT4 is the most desired skill in the UK job market, according to the findings of recruitment research company MMS.
The figures, compiled from job advertisements in newspapers and magazines, showed that interest in Unix specialists had slumped by more than 35 per cent in the past 12 months.
The MMS result came as a big surprise as Microsoft has been peddling the outdated Windows NT4, a product that the company has been promising to replace for months. By rights, Unix systems should be extremely popular for users who do not want to opt for Microsoft or those who want a more scalable high-end system.
Some industry analysts believe this hasn't happened because the disciples of Unix have been locked in an almost religious war with the acolytes of its latest open-standard creation, Linux. It's a civil war that Linux is predicted to win.
Simon Moores, chairman of the Windows NT forum, said: "The Unix system is static. Its market has been well and truly diluted by Linux. Companies that would normally have opted for Unix are opting for Linux instead."
The Metropolitan Police and North Surrey Council are among the high profile converts to Linux. Both were lured away from Unix by open standards and promises of support from top vendors.
There have also been some vendor defections towards Linux over recent months. Moores claimed that there is evidence that Sun Microsystems is back-peddling support from Java in favour of it.
He is of the opinion that, in the long term, Linux will be replacing other Unix operating systems in the corporate market, leaving only the SME market to Microsoft which it already dominates.
Linux has enjoyed its rapid rise because Microsoft can't compete until it releases its Windows 2000. Linux has used the lull while Windows 2000 establishes itself, to carve a niche in the enterprise market at the expense of other Unix operating systems.
Once Windows 2000 is established and the market is convinced that it works, then the two operating systems will fight it out for each other's markets - in much the same way that NT and Unix have been battling it out for the past two years, said Moores.
Mark Tennant, Windows NT server manager at Microsoft, admitted that Linux will become the main rival to Windows 2000 and there are a number of strategies being designed by the software giant to tackle it.
He hoped that the release of the data server product - about 120 days after the arrival of Windows 2000 - will provide tough competition for Linux set-ups at the high end of the corporate market.
Tennant does not believe that Linux has the ability to take away customers of Windows NT.
"I have not heard anyone talking about moving from Windows NT to a Linux model, but I have heard of Unix being damaged because of it," he claimed.
Windows NT has growing support among corporate customers and it is seen as a proven technology, said Tennant.
He said the main advantage for the technology is that there are so many software systems running on it. "Many companies are taking decisions on their operating system on the basis of packages that will run on them.
There is a huge number of organisations that are running on NT - and few that have been designed for Linux.
One of Microsoft's biggest marketing weapons against Linux will be the offer of cut-price training schemes. In a recent announcement, the company declared that it would be spending more than $40m to subsidise the training of Windows 2000 developers.
It is a model that the software giant used successfully last year when it spent $20m to establish SQL Server 7 through a similar discounted training programme.
This low cost training scheme shows clever strategic marketing by Microsoft.
In effect, it means that the company has been tinkering with the employment market to lower the overall cost of launching a Windows NT project.
But Chris Sarfas, UK product marketing manager at Sun Microsystems, believed that some industry observers have failed to see that the Linux operating system is just another version of Unix.
"Someone who can use Unix can also use Linux - there is very little, if not zero, difference in the skills. If people added the growth in Linux to the figures for the decrease in Unix, I am sure they would see that they're the same level or higher," he said.
Sarfas insisted that it's a fundamental - if popular - misconception that Linux growth also helps Windows NT. Anything that supports the growth of Linux will almost automatically aid the growth of Unix generally.
He said it was highly improbable that Linux will find its home in the high-end corporate environment because it does not have the tools to handle key functions such as clustering.
That will remain the preserve of commercial Unix systems such as Solaris, although Windows NT will eventually also find its way into that market.
"Where Linux will find its home is on the desktop as part of the development environment, and this has led to a very worried Microsoft," said Sarfas.
The Linux OS has given systems developers the opportunity to develop applications that are not locked into the Microsoft environment and will work almost anywhere.
Sarfas added: "Whatever strategy Microsoft will decide to take before the release of the Windows 2000 product, the fact is it should be extremely worried because every Linux sale represents a missed Windows NT sale."
If Sarfas is right, then Linux should be seen as a counter-strike by Unix against Windows NT, rather than its nemesis.