IBM has never had the reputation of being open before, but in 2007, where SUN's Solaris is now known as OpenSolaris and can be downloaded for free, IBM has shown they did not get stuck in the eighties. They have setup a website about their upcoming AIX 6.1 - and you can even download a copy to burn on cd's. The OS is currently beta, and the first official release is due in the fourth quarter of this year.

AIX 6 will run on IBM systems based on Power4, PowerPC 970, Power5, and IBM's latest Power6 processorsTheRegister

IBM is apparently under some pressure from SUN. They claim that the new OS has a rather Solaris 10-like feel. Years ago rumors said IBM was to replace AIX with Linux, but instead they have succesfully followed the course of moving to versions of AIX that are more like Linux, but are in fact AIX. A good move that allowed them to hold on to their own operating system but yet they have managed to stay attractive to existing and new customers.