DESPITE the continuing economic crunch and the slide of the peso, International Business Machines sees continuous growth of the Unix server market in the next millennium.

IBM further predicts that customers who prefer Unix-based solutions will also consider Unix platforms for traditional solutions like Enterprise Resource Planning and Supply Chain Management. With this optimism, IBM recently launched the RS/6000 S80 server and RS/6000 B50 server.

"In the Philippines alone, our revenues and market share have been growing on a year-to-year basis. With the new S80 and B50 models, we are delivering a message to the Unix market that IBM is committed to Unix and that we continue to offer servers with improved performance," said Jojo Raya, RS/6000 product manager of IBM Philippines.

Asked what factors would influence customers' decisions on applications and server platforms, Raya replied that the industry's direction toward e-commerce as a competitive edge will continue to affect customers' decisions in the server segment.

"As they move to more critical applications and target global customers, they will have to look for vendors who can offer them solutions or systems which are scalable and offer high availability and security," he said.

Unix--a popular multi-user, multitasking operating system--may fit this profile.

Unix has become a leading operating system for workstations because of its portability, flexibility and power. Historically, it has been less popular in the personal computer market, but the emergence of the Linux variant is revitalizing Unix across all platforms. IBM has embraced Linux because of its rising popularity, especially in the Internet service provider market.

Raya also added that the buying decision in the server segment would be affected by the Y2K Bug.

"For those customers who are still not Y2K ready, many third-party vendors are offering ready-to-go applications which they can implement in 30 to 60 days," he said.