Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

30 Jan 2002

 

Pixar moving to Linux over SGI IRIX workstations

All the news is Linux this week with LinuxWorld Conference and Expo taking place in New York. And with that there is news of Pixar moving to IBM Linux workstations over older SGI IRIX workstations.

In a C/net story Bill Zeitler, head of IBM's Linux server group said Pixar is replacing the SGI machines used to animate "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters Inc". IBM invested $1 billion last year in Linux and has now announced that they have recouped that investment in sales.

Pixar and OS X

It is now clear that Mac OS X will not be replacing IRIX for Pixar's future workstations anytime soon. The Linux workstation market for highend 3D has made similar beachheads at Dreamworks too. What is important to realize however is that one of Linux's great strengths is its remarkable scalability (IBM has it running on mainframes with dozens and dozens of processors and yet we see Sony is shipping Linux for the PlayStation 2 game machine).

As Linux takes over in many markets (both old and new) an advantage Mac OS X has over Windows is that Linux and OS X are both UNIX-based operating systems with very common components and open-source resources. This makes it easy for Linux developers (as well as UNIX ones) to bring their apps over to Mac OS X.

Apple and Linux: Developer Tool Moves

If I was Steve Jobs I would create a software division at Apple, or even a separate subsidiary, focused solely on making developer tools for creating Mac OS X and Linux software simultaneously. Such tools would be in hot demand by Linux developers looking to tap Apple's 25 million Mac customers who will eventually all be on OS X in a few years time.

While this is happening it would build a positive synergy between the two platforms, form loyalties with Linux developers to OS X, and alienate Microsoft's OS's which have no bloodline with the UNIX world. One more note, Apple should also work with IBM which has already committed resources to Linux on PowerPC processors.

The synergy's are all there for Mac OS X to benefit from Linux's future. Apple only needs to see it clearly and not pit Linux as a competitor to OS X.

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