Formerly Confidential SGI Tapes Now Freed To The Public

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Formerly Confidential SGI Tapes Now Freed To The Public

A Phoronix reader has exclusively shared with Phoronix a set of SGI marketing tapes that were formerly confidential and deal with "Selling into an NT Environment", among other topics...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTYwNDA

[Rexilion]

What is this about? Some conspiracy? Google could not find anything explaining why this is so interesting.

[silix]

What is this about? Some conspiracy? Google could not find anything explaining why this is so interesting.

the tapes themselves were confidential, the point hardly was...
there's no conspiracy - anyone following IT field press back in the days (early 90's - yeah, before the advent of Google*) can remember at some point NT was touted as "the next unix"(**), with everyone and their mother seriously considering migrating to it (at least for workstations and servers), or adopting side by side with their own platform
(starting with SGI and DEC - Mips and Alpha were the first non x86 architectures to see the Os ported - but also PPC server vendors)

* it's not like what google doesnt index has never existed eh...

** and actually, apart from being based on more modern concepts (regardless of implementation problems -bugs) than an OS rooted in the 70's, being the same OS developed by only one company, with the same API's across architectures (with just the HAL kernel layer adapted) NT would have been more of a cross vendor unifying platform than unix itself (which had already fragmented due to every vendor having his own version, with different kernel- and user-level specifics)

[sobkas]

What is this about? Some conspiracy? Google could not find anything explaining why this is so interesting.

Marek Hołyński wrote a book "E-mailem z Doliny Krzemowej" "Email from Silicon Valley" (book in polish), it should shed some light on this story.

[Rexilion]

the tapes themselves were confidential, the point hardly was...
there's no conspiracy - anyone following IT field press back in the days (early 90's - yeah, before the advent of Google*) can remember at some point NT was touted as "the next unix"(**), with everyone and their mother seriously considering migrating to it (at least for workstations and servers), or adopting side by side with their own platform
(starting with SGI and DEC - Mips and Alpha were the first non x86 architectures to see the Os ported - but also PPC server vendors)

* it's not like what google doesnt index has never existed eh...

** and actually, apart from being based on more modern concepts (regardless of implementation problems -bugs) than an OS rooted in the 70's, being the same OS developed by only one company, with the same API's across architectures (with just the HAL kernel layer adapted) NT would have been more of a cross vendor unifying platform than unix itself (which had already fragmented due to every vendor having his own version, with different kernel- and user-level specifics)

If you look at Microsoft struggling right now, who knew? If that took off, they would probably still dominate. Thanks for the pointer. And yes, I'm well aware that there was a time before Google started indexing thank you .

Marek Hołyński wrote a book "E-mailem z Doliny Krzemowej" "Email from Silicon Valley" (book in polish), it should shed some light on this story.

I cannot read Polak, so I'll have to search some more I guess.

I'm really surprised that one of Microsoft's products was considered a contender with Unix. I guess Linux filled the multi-platform niche by now.

[nils_]

If you look at Microsoft struggling right now, who knew? If that took off, they would probably still dominate.

Struggling? Hardly. It's still a very profitable company, even with the many failed products.

[danwood76]

....If that took off....

Mainstream Windows has been NT based since windows 2000......

[GreatEmerald]

I'm really surprised that one of Microsoft's products was considered a contender with Unix. I guess Linux filled the multi-platform niche by now.

Microsoft saw UNIX as a threat, and so created Windows NT in order for it to be a "UNIX killer": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...1#As_NT_OS.2F2

[gamerk2]

Microsoft saw UNIX as a threat, and so created Windows NT in order for it to be a "UNIX killer": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...1#As_NT_OS.2F2

Technically, they just hired the best engineers VMS had to offer, and had them build NT. Lets not forget, NT *used* to support architectures like PPC, SPARC, DEC Alpha, and the like. As those architectures died, MSFT simply dropped support for them to increase the processing speed of x86. But at release? Yes, NT was a significant threat to Unix based systems.

Linux basically fills that niche now though. MSFT REALLY needs to streamline the OS at some point.

[Rexilion]

Struggling? Hardly. It's still a very profitable company, even with the many failed products.

It's only afloat because everyone uses Office documents and Silverlight. I had to install Office 2007 on our main Arch machine to make it usable. They only have profit because they use vendor lockin. That's all. You can see this in their failure to get a hold in the mobile and tabletmarket. And I have yet to see other appliances ran by Windows.

Mainstream Windows has been NT based since windows 2000......

I was more referring to NT on other architecture's. The only other MicroSuck OS (for what I know of) was XP on Itanium machines.

MicroSuck saw UNIX as a threat, and so created Windows NT in order for it to be a "UNIX killer": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...1#As_NT_OS.2F2

So even after imitating the competition, they are not capable of pulling it off. Despite the large amount of manpower/cash.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I think Windows is a nice OS for most people. I just fail to see the justification for their marketshare relative to their 'innovations'.