Unix Future Outlook

The Future of the Managerial Side for UNIX

UNIX is a multi-user , multitasking , virtual memory operating system that runs on a wide variety of hardware platforms . This means that UNIX is able to do many things at the same time , for many different users , and using more memory than it really has physically installed . The UNIX operating system has so far been one of the primary software platforms for the '90s , providing distributed computing capabilities for even the most diverse networks . Its remarkable success has been due both to its portability and

to its long history of innovation . UNIX today runs on three or four million computers , maybe more . But yet , the future of UNIX is highly debated . While computing needs are changing there is also more competition to contend with . Many experts feel that this is the beginning of the decline of UNIX . But , the inclusion of standards and evolution of uniformity in UNIX seems to suggest that the future is quite bright for UNIX

Challenges

Without an adequate market share , UNIX has suffered from a dearth of software or , at least , a dearth of affordable software , especially compared with personal computer systems such as those built by IBM and Apple . The flavors of UNIX are different enough that it became difficult and , therefore , costly to port applications from one to the other . UNIX has two primary flavors : BSD which is widely use in the academic and research environments and System V version that is used by strictly commercial applications . For system administrators , moving from one flavor of UNIX to another involves additional troubles . In addition UNIX has evolved into a complex system with the inclusion of windowing systems , graphical user interfaces . This has affected the complexity of porting applications . Moreover , improvements in networking seemed to require a more unified UNIX (Henry , 2006

Today 's businesses are demanding enterprise-wide computing solutions which call for a high degree of data sharing . This needs distributed applications , ease of moving information and people expertise in the organization . Today 's procurements are specifying standard interfaces and protocols to help meet this demand and leverage organizations investments in computing technology

Competition

The war will be between open and proprietary , between standards-backed UNIX and contenders such as Windows NT vying for the desktop in the enterprise network . The more modern Windows NT incorporates many characteristics of UNIX from the basic metaphor and hierarchical system to support for named pipes for interprocess communication and the use of STREAMS in networking . Windows NT has also implemented many of the most important features of UNIX , including multitasking multiprocessing , and security . Although UNIX has had enhancing effects on many other operating systems , its capabilities still continue to set it in a class by itself

Evolution of UNIX

As a result of new demands , UNIX has evolved . Its command sets and the programming interfaces are becoming increasingly standardized and a number of startling alliances between UNIX competitors are bringing a new unity to UNIX . UNIX is , in most...