Novell NetWare or Microsoft Windows NT ?

March 1999 - IDC (International Data Corporation) came out with a report title "Strategies for Windows NT in the Enterprise" available at http://www.novell.com/advantage/idcreport.html. I summarized the report here. For the details, please refer to the hyperlink.

IDC interviewed several organizations views on Windows NT, NetWare and UNIX.

	Windows NT	NetWare	UNIX
major uses	departmental infrastructure server (file/print, messaging, communications)	file/print services, directory services, communications	transaction processing database support custom/technical applications enterprise-scale packaged commercial applications
comment	NOT an eneterprise server running mission-critical applications	strength and reliability

In smaller organizations or in business units within large organizations, NT may be the server operating environment of choice, often surrounded by Windows NT or Windows 95 client machines.

IDC recommends that management understand its organization's basic business requirements before selecting either a system or an operating environment for that system. It is best to select the application portfolio first and then to select the database and development tools. Once selections have been made in these categories, IT management can evaluate performance characteristics of those applications on various test-bed platforms in order to determine which operating environment is the best fit.

Why are the OS selected:

Windows NT	NetWare	UNIX
used by organizations of all sizes and in all markets. Windows NT has been assigned "business-critical" functions NOT "mission-critical". Windows NT has been selected mostly by the business unit management (easier and lower costs) NOT the IT organization (best technical fit). chosen because of Microsoft's marketing strategy	best solution for basic infrastructure support chosen because of existing expertise	chosen because they have experience using this software Unix suppliers have made their products robust, reliable, manageable, scalable, and highly interoperable.

Strength and Weakness:

	Windows NT	NetWare	UNIX
Strength	support Windows clients support complex Windows applications Windows NT Workstation for security	high performance file and print server NDS	medium to high-end business processing (online transaction processing) medium to large databases custom applications availability on every type of system (Alpha, Intel, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC)
Weakness	medium to high-end business processing medium to large databases large users	large-scale, server-centric applications or database software	users using Windows desktops has expertise with only Windows