Dell and Sun executives provided one of the more interesting behind-the-scenes battles at last month's LinuxWorld.

In one corner was Randy Mott, Dell CIO. In his keynote presentation, Mott urged IT managers to consider a cultural revolution that would involve ditching Unix. Mott's opening slide was a mock obituary with the headline, "Unix is Dead."

In the other corner was Jonathan Schwartz, Sun software czar. Dining with journalists and customers, Schwartz reminded us that there are some tasks for which Unix remains the only viable solution. To underscore his point, he noted that Dell still uses Sun-based systems to manage its supply chain.

Although such hyperbolic sparring is typical of this industry, I decided to probe a bit deeper into Dell's talk of revolution. Dell's response: The company is in the process of migrating off those Sun-based systems. If true, this would be consistent with a key point in Mott's presentation: CIOs and IT managers need to focus the lion's share of their IT resources on innovation rather than maintenance of the status quo. "Otherwise," said Mott, "companies and even entire industries will never realize their full potential."

"Industries that don't plan for obsolescence will get out of date and they will turn out to be different industries than what they could have been." said Mott. "Look at the airlines, an industry with big possibilities. A lot of that was realized, but it got to a point and then it stopped. Look at the big failures: Eastern Airlines, Swissair, Pan Am. That industry's potential went unfulfilled because of dated processes and obsolescence. Just think about what could have been with technologies in the airline industry in terms of speed, capacity, lowering of fuel costs, and less overhead."

No industry was safe from Mott's barbed tongue. According to Mott, "The railroad industry's failure to plan for obsolescence resulted in competitive pressures, technology hurdles, regulatory issues, schedule delays and missed opportunities."

To get out of the rut of obsolescence, Mott recommended a cultural shift. Rather than spending 85 percent of a company's resources on the status quo or "keeping the lights on," and 15 percent on development and innovation, the ratio should be turned around.

Mott plans to put his money where his mouth is.

Dell has turned the Internet and a fully, software-greased supply-chain into huge competitive advantage. Without an emphasis on those systems (and some leverage Dell can bring to bear on its suppliers), the company's direct model might never have transformed the technology industry's channel the way it has, nor might have Dell been as successful at lowering its DSI. Few companies have streamlined their supply-chain to this degree. But Mott is not willing to rest on Dell's laurels. Staying far ahead of the obsolescence curve, says Mott, has incited a cultural revolution within his organization that will lead to a long term reallocation of Dell's resources.

But these revolutions take time. Mott's roadmap shows Dell getting to the 15/85 status quo/innovation ratio by the end of the decade. By the end of Dell's fiscal year 2004, Mott predicts, the company will achieve a 45/55 split. By 2006, it will be 25/75.

This is where the Unix issue plays a key role in Mott's plans. To reallocate resources in this fashion, Dell has to do more (or at least the same) with less. Because Dell's systems are based on Oracle, and Oracle is available to both the Sun Solaris and Red Hat Linux environments, Mott says that Dell looked into switching to Linux. The company determined that such move would yield a configuration 89 percent faster and 41 less expensive. Keeping in mind that Dell has strategic sales relationships with both Red Hat and Oracle, it's hard to say how much of this reconfiguration is mandated. On the other hand, I can't believe that Mott would risk his career and his company's future on a move in which he did not have full confidence.

That move, says Dell spokesperson Wendy Giever, is now underway. "Schwartz is right. Currently, our order management, customer transaction information, manufacturing flow, and software downloads (as a part of our build-to-order manufacturing process) all involve Sun-based Unix systems. But that's all being moved to Dell-based systems running Red Hat Linux and Oracle 9iRAC. So far, 14 Sun systems are gone and the plans are to complete the 'Sun setting' exercise this year."

"The importance of the Unix era vs. Linux era," says Mott, "Is that Linux is based on open standards that will allow CIOs to build flexibility, affordability and performance into business computing platforms."

Indeed, Linux on Intel may be an enabler of those Holy Grails sought by CIOs. But calling any primary part of the combined platform an open standard is a stretch. While Intel's architecture continues to dominate the industry, it is by no means an open standard. Oracle 9iRAC isn't even close to an open standard (although it supports many). And what of Linux? Does open source an open standard make? That's a question I'll leave open to you and Sun's Jonathan Schwartz, who told me that trusting your systems to open source could be a mistake.

Said Schwartz, "I don't think businesses are really prepared to trust their mission critical systems to technologies where, if something goes wrong with the open source, nobody is responsible for fixing it and doing all the testing on a timely basis. With Sun, you've got a single throat to choke and we can respond instantly."

Apparently, Dell's Mott doesn't see the risks the same way. And neither do some of ZDNet's readers, like Steve Goldsmith and Rick Proctor.

In this Dell-Sun sparring match, who's landing the most jabs? Can Linux KO Unix? Does open source an open standard make? Share your opinions in our TalkBack forum, or e-mail me at david.berlind@cnet.com.