Unisys unveiled its latest enterprise computing platform.  This cloud service is aimed at helping large firms and cloud service providers cut physical server requirements by up to 70 percent.

“Dubbed Forward, the platform combines Unisys’ security partitioning technology (S-Par) with Intel’s Xeon virtualization technology to give organizations a flexible computing fabric to handle mission-critical workloads.”

The company said the platform, which will be available in 60 days, will be a good fit for organizations looking to move away from expensive Unix environments to Linux and Windows-based platforms.  Thus, the cost savings.

However, I’m not sure that those who migrate to from higher-end Unix systems will find Linux and Windows platforms in the cloud a good alternative.  Even from a cost perspective.

Indeed, the cost of porting to those platforms, as well as localization of the applications, could far exceed any operational cost savings.  Moreover, this is a promise that pretty much all other cloud providers are stating, and thus Unisys may find that it’s difficult to find a market for this service beyond their existing customer base.  Moreover, they are looking to provide services along with the cloud service, and that could be the true play here.