It hardly impacts the customers these big corporations focus on (mostly other big corporations).
I won't go into all the arguments pro and con this change but, suffice it to say, companies that have HPUX/AIX/Solaris/etc servers and cannot afford a support contract anymore are probably better served by other offerings (Linux, BSD, etc) running on less expensive hardware.
People will probably say "HP server division will die now because of this". While it's likely HP/Oracle/IBM's server divisions are not cash cows anymore, this is unlikely to happen. Just as with mainframe, it's part of IT optimization and using the right tool for the right job. Mainframes aren't gone, just hidden away in very specific areas. These proprietary Unix behemoths will go the same away... and the hidden areas they will be used at can afford the support contracts.
Overall, nothing new happening here. We are just going to repeat all the arguments again for why it's such a good/bad idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_System_z
> just hidden away in very specific areas
Like every single Financial Institutions on the globe...
Horses for Courses... asking a steeplechaser to do a flat race would be foolish, but each is exceptional for the task they have been bread for.
Perhaps I should have phrased it "RISC machines" instead of specifying the OS they run.
One fault in my argument is that HP sells smaller x86 machines, not only RISC behemoths. So the small customer that bought an HP server a while ago, ran off the warranty period and cannot afford a support contract, is royally screwed. Even here, this go back to my argument: these people are not who HP/IBM/Oracle are focusing on so they couldn't care less.
Even most of the Proliant range comes with 3yrs service/support/warranty so its only really the microservers which are really affected.