RE: i5....continues... -- MIDRANGE-L

Afaik, most of the arguments against Win/Power are either specious or summed
up in the word WinTel.

Cannot say for certain, nor will say any more as I don't want to be accused
of trolling anybody.

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-bounces+jt=ee.net@xxxxxxxxxxxx
| [mailto:midrange-l-bounces+jt=ee.net@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Scott
| Klement
| Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 12:43 PM
| To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
| Subject: Re: i5....continues...
| Importance: High
|
|
|
| > If they can put Linux and Aix in a little partition, do
| > you really think Windows(any version) is a real challenge ???
|
| Ummm... Windows would be MUCH harder to do than either Linux or AIX.  It's
| a whole different paradigm!
|
| For starters, IBM has the source code for both Linux and AIX.  You have to
| either change the kernel of the OS to make it work, or write a virtual
| machine that emulates the environment that the OS was designed for.
| Running in a VM would be much slower, and would eliminate all of the
| advantages of having a 64-bit CPU -- but if you can change the kernel to
| run natively, you're set.
|
| Furthermore, Windows is designed for a single-user per machine scenario.
| Yes, I know, they use newer versions for multiple users, but it wasn't
| designed from the ground up to do that.  Both Linux and AIX were.  This
| makes it much more difficult to implement on hardware that was
| specifically designed for a multi-user scenario.
|
| Windows software also always assumes that you have an attached graphical
| display.  Again, they could emulate one so that it runs over a network,
| but that will both cause problems and hamper performance.
|
| Now, I'm not saying that IBM couldn't do it.  They've got the know-how,
| I'm sure they could overcome these problems -- but for sure Windows is a
| MUCH bigger challenge than Linux or AIX!!
|
|
| > This rumor of running Windows "native" has been around
| > as long I can remember and frankly I don't know why IBM
| > has resisted this for so long...
|
| Because Windows is crap.  The only reason people run it is because
| everyone else runs it and because there's a ton of software for it.
|
| If they made it run natively, they'd break compatibility with all of that
| software!  Unlike Linux, most software for Windows is NOT open-source.
|
| If they ran it in emulation to keep software compatibility, the
| performance would suffer to the point where it would not make ANY sense
| for anyone to run it.  Why pay $100000 to run Windows slower than you can
| on a $500 box?
|
|
| > But  ....just think how many desk tops would be replaced
| > by one server in most shops...
|
| This makes no sense.  Just because it runs Windows does not mean that it
| would replace the desktops!   Windows isn't designed for a multi-user
| environment.  If you had Windows running on an iSeries (or i5 or whatever)
| you'd use it as a server.  You'd still need lots of desktops.
|
| Or, you'd have to use something like Citrix and you'd have to deal with
| the software incompatibilities that go with that, and you'd still need
| thin clients.
|
| No matter how you slice it, it wouldn't magically eliminate all of the
| desktops.   If it did, it would no longer be Windows because you'd have to
| COMPLETELY change the Windows paradigm.
|
| Even if you did change the paradigm, you'd still have to contend with the
| fact that all of the existing 32-bit applications would not run.  Unless,
| of course, the CPU has both 64-bit and 32-bit instructions -- but then
| you'd lose all of the advantages of 64-bit.
|
| In fact, that's how the Intel CPUs work now.  They've got 8-bit, 16-bit
| and 32-bit instructions in them.  This allows them to run MS-DOS, Win16
| (Win 3.1 / WFW) and Win32 (Win9x/ME/NT/2k/XP) instructions.  The new Intel
| and AMD chips that are 64-bit will also have the 32bit, 16bit, and 8bit
| instructions so that they're compatible.
|
| And this is one of the great advantages of OUR platform.  Thanks to the
| way the system works, you can migrate applications from 32-bit to 48-bit
| to 64-bit without needing to rewrite the software.  But this is an aspect
| of OS/400, not of the hardware.  If you ran Windows, that advantage
| wouldn't be there...
|
| > Can you imagine how much revenue IBM gets from selling
| > PC's and the required support in the larger instalations ???
| >
| > Soooo, is Windows on a single server a good idea ????
|
| A good idea?  No.  Having a "real" alternative to Windows, that runs on
| the iSeries hardware would be.
|
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