5 ms·

the joke of it is that apple won the unix wars. i'd be shocked if they haven't shipped more unix workstations than all the other vendors combined and they're c

by a-dub 6y ago

the joke of it is that apple won the unix wars. i'd be shocked if they haven't shipped more unix workstations than all the other vendors combined and they're certainly the last vertically integrated workstation vendor standing. (they just didn't call them that) as far as linux on the desktop, that never quite happened... but again i'd wager there are almost certainly more handsets running android on linux than desktop pcs in operating existence.

forest_dweller 6y ago
> as far as linux on the desktop, that never quite happened... but again i'd wager there are almost certainly more handsets running android on linux than desktop pcs in operating existence. Why does it matter than Android is Linux when all the benefits of using something like Linux aren't there?
toyg 6y ago
I’d argue they are not “vertically integrated”, since they’ve effectively killed their server offerings. I don’t know the specifics, but I bet they don’t sell anything like a bank-teller system either, the bread & butter of workstation sellers (Sun had some amazing stuff there). But Apple are certainly the only large unix-workstation seller left.
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  You might be thinking of horizontal integration. Apple is most certainly an increasingly vertically-integrated company.
Tsiklon 6y ago
I'll be interested in seeing how their new computers turn out - as they're turning away from commodity hardware, and going back to bespoke silicon for their CPUs, it's like we're going back in time to the more heterogeneous Unix Workstation days.
- a-dub 6y ago
  it's going to be interesting. i think they captured a lot of the developer/systems market because most server infrastructure is x86-64 and folks can run the same vms/containers locally. i wonder how much of that they stand to lose by forcing those folks to maintain separate builds or use slow emulation. granted, a lot happens in higher level languages, but introducing a new supported cpu architecture is painful... there are always native libraries. i think a lot of apple's comeback, at least in the early days, was fueled by developers and systems people evangelizing them as the usable unix...
musicale 6y ago
> i'd be shocked if they haven't shipped more unix workstations than all the other vendors combined Not to mention all the unix-based laptops, tablets, phones, and watches. ;-)

by a-dub 6y ago

forest_dweller 6y ago

> as far as linux on the desktop, that never quite happened... but again i'd wager there are almost certainly more handsets running android on linux than desktop pcs in operating existence. Why does it matter than Android is Linux when all the benefits of using something like Linux aren't there?

toyg 6y ago

I’d argue they are not “vertically integrated”, since they’ve effectively killed their server offerings. I don’t know the specifics, but I bet they don’t sell anything like a bank-teller system either, the bread & butter of workstation sellers (Sun had some amazing stuff there). But Apple are certainly the only large unix-workstation seller left.

jacques_chester 6y ago
You might be thinking of horizontal integration. Apple is most certainly an increasingly vertically-integrated company.

Tsiklon 6y ago

I'll be interested in seeing how their new computers turn out - as they're turning away from commodity hardware, and going back to bespoke silicon for their CPUs, it's like we're going back in time to the more heterogeneous Unix Workstation days.

a-dub 6y ago
it's going to be interesting. i think they captured a lot of the developer/systems market because most server infrastructure is x86-64 and folks can run the same vms/containers locally. i wonder how much of that they stand to lose by forcing those folks to maintain separate builds or use slow emulation. granted, a lot happens in higher level languages, but introducing a new supported cpu architecture is painful... there are always native libraries. i think a lot of apple's comeback, at least in the early days, was fueled by developers and systems people evangelizing them as the usable unix...

musicale 6y ago

> i'd be shocked if they haven't shipped more unix workstations than all the other vendors combined Not to mention all the unix-based laptops, tablets, phones, and watches. ;-)