The market for the Unix operating system continues to be strong. In 1994, the leading vendors of Unix systems accounted for $27 billion in shipments. This revenue number reflects the sales of hardware pre-loaded with the Unix operating system.

Dataquest estimates that 2.5 million units of Unix shipped in 1994, and that 3.2 million units will ship in 1998. Dataquest estimates that at the end of 1995 there was an installed base of over 5 million Unix computers. Specifically for sales of server operating systems (as opposed to desktop operating systems), IDC estimates that 720,000 units of Unix shipped in 1995 compared to only 380,000 units of Windows NT. Though shipments of NT are growing at an increasingly fast pace, most analysts believe that this growth is at the expense of Novell's NetWare, rather than Unix.

The Unix market is being driven by its use for client/server applications and Internet servers. A survey in 1995 found that 27% of Information Systems (IS) managers planned for Unix to be the platform for their new data-processing applications and 47% planned Unix for their database applications. Furthermore, about 50% of corporate IS departments stated that they expected to get more Unix applications soon. Another survey performed by Infoworld in November 1995 found that Unix was the preferred World Wide Web server operating system by most IS managers at 45% of those surveyed; NT was preferred by only 17% of IS managers. A Datapro report released in July 1996 surveyed Unix users and found that by the end of the decade, spending on Unix systems will be as much as on all non-Unix systems combined. The Internet is credited for Unix's strength in the survey.

"On the Internet side, we think Unix is going to win big," said analyst Jon Oltsik with Forrester Research. "We don't think NT is going to play there." - American Statesman, May 27, 1996.

"All of which combines to make Unix, in general, and Solaris in particular, far safer from the NT threat than the industry originally thought. If anything, it's actually gained ground." - SunExpert, May 1996.