Sun Unveils More Linux Strategies 236
A number of people have submitted the press release from Sun Microsystems about their latest announcements in conjunction with Linux. Highlights from this one include the promised release of "New single- and multiprocessor systems, to be announced mid-year, will use the x86 architecture and be capable of running thousands of Linux applications natively." As well, they are expanding the Cobalt line of servers, but even more interestingly they are going to "freely offer" parts of Solaris - but no license specified that I saw. They are also releasing "ABICheck", which should check compatibility between Linux/Solaris. C|Net is carrying coverage now as well. And it looks like Lineo and SuSe are going to get competition in the embedded and telecom support area - I wonder if that's tied to the OSDL announcement. It's good to see that they are getting on the right track - now let's hope they stay the course.
Solaris X86 Whiners.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I use Solaris for SPARC, its great, but Solaris X86 was half-baked from the start. The writing was on the wall for a LONG time, but when Sun finally canned it, I for one had to endure both the cries of "abandonware!" as well as generic sun bashing from the local Linux people I have to deal with.
It should be obvious now, Sun is doing the right thing by ceeding the X86 market to Linux, and infact helping the transition, for those that were in the Solaris X86 crowd. Win-win situation, as far as I can see.
Re:Solaris X86 Whiners.... (Score:1)
Re:Solaris X86 Whiners.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea here isn't to boot Solaris out... it's to introduce compatibility with Linux because when Sun equipment is too expensive, we go to PeeCee and Linux, and Sun still wants to be an option when that's already happened.
Solaris for Sparc will not be replaced by Linux any time soon (hopefully never) because it's whole purpose is to provide a stable and extensible environment compatible with Sun hardware. Linux has good points, but out-of-box, it's a far cry from a robust server environment. Solaris has things like JumpStart that make administering it MUCH more efficient than Linux. The only advantages of Linux in this arena are being cheap/free to implement, and running on cheap hardware*.
*Notice that the biggest complaint with Solaris/x86 was compatibility problems with low-end hardware...
Re:Solaris X86 Whiners.... (Score:2, Interesting)
This comment [slashdot.org] states it best.
Even Sun is saying the release is defered. [sun.com]
---Sig filler so you read the comment.---
cobalt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:cobalt (Score:3, Interesting)
Eliminate competition through acquisition (Score:2)
Acquisition of Doom (Score:2)
And I don't remember the last time any of these initiatives were really successful. Sun management just doesn't believe in any of it. They may have brief enthusiasms fo this technology or that, but they never really commit to it. They spend a ton of money on this R&D initiative or that acquisition. Then they lose interest and walk away.
Arguably, Java is an exception. But if Java has a long term future, it's because other players, such as IBM, have more commitment to it than Sun does.
Re:cobalt (Score:2)
I was all ready to purchase a Sun Blade 100, so I rang Sun with some questions. The guy I spoke to was rude and when I asked if I could upgrade it myself some time in the future with more RAM and larger hard drives, I was pretty much told that if I so much as opened the unit, the warrantee would be void.
Apple does'nt even take a stance like that.
No more needs for Sun Freeware ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Everything will come with the OS !
--- I'm a 20th century digital boy
--- I don't know what to do by I got a lot of PROGS
Highlights for the impatient.... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The x86 architecture with Linux will only be used in their Cobalt and other small file/print server solutions.
2. They are not releasing any new workstations based on x86 processors.
3. They plan on working with others to support Linux on the Sparc architecture.
4. They offer products which allow Linux programs to run under Solaris.
Now for the interesting questions:
1. Is their work in Linux part of a long-range strategy to phase out Solaris? After all, they make money selling hardware. If a free UNIX is available, why waste money developing Solaris.
2. Are they taking a play out of IBM's Linux-everywhere strategy? How soon before we see E10k's and E15k's shipping with virtual machine software able to support 1000's of Linux images?
Just my take on the article.
mmm, UML (Score:2)
Or is UML x86-specific, and I'm smoking crack here?
Re:mmm, UML (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, but I had to do it.
Linux on big iron... (Score:2, Insightful)
I just cannot see Sun replacing Solaris on their high-end multi-processor machines... Or at least not until Linux scales equally well :-)
Re:Linux on big iron... (Score:2)
It's not just scalability. There are features in Solaris-- although I'm not familiar enough with them to get specific-- that allow the customer to partition out failed hardware components for repair or replacement without taking the system down. Linux has no features even remotely like that.
Of course, the big problem was always getting the system to recognize the new hardware component again. If I remember right, that still requires a reboot....
Re:Linux on big iron... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux on big iron... (Score:2)
You might want to look at Greg KH patches for HotPCI plugins as well as processors plugins...
Of course - you cannot do it on off-the-shelf motherboard, only on the Telco's customized machines, but there is a Linux support for this kind of stuff..
Re:Linux on big iron... (Score:2)
Sun has done a pretty good job at dynamic reconfiguration, just not automatic, dynamic reconfiguration. This is supported in Solaris, just not in all versions of the hardware. I beleive you need the X800 series of Enterprise servers, or a 10/15K. The X500 series is absolutely not hot swappable on the CPU's as it ships from Sun (I know, we lost two CPU's that crashed the box). I'm not aware of any patches necessary other than the standard Solaris patches.
Re:Highlights for the impatient.... (Score:1)
Because they make a lot of money selling Solaris, and selling maintenance contracts for Solaris.
--Doug
Re:Highlights for the impatient.... (Score:1)
Not likely. When you say "Linux images," I'm assuming that you mean running linux on a Dynamic System Domain. The E10k only supports 16 domains. I think the E15k will support only 18, but I don't remember that off the top of my head...
Re:Highlights for the impatient.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless it is done right, Linux on really big servers won't be quite as good as Solaris. Sun has invested a lot of effort in making Solaris extremely efficient on many processors. Sun can afford to drop Solaris only if Linux is equally good or better on large computers, which isn't the case, right now.
Instead, Sun sees Linux as an opportunity to position themselves better against small-time servers, such as those that run Windows NT/2000.
Re:Highlights for the impatient.... (Score:2)
I find it highly likely that this is exactly what will happen. And I wouldn't be surprised to see this on the only other Unix workalike with a future as well (OS X). Although I doubt Apple will support it like Sun will.
Well, shit, this is surprising! (Score:1)
Now that the pigs are flying nicely and Hell has reached about -5 degrees Celsius, perhaps Microsoft will overwrite their IIS source code directory with Apache source files, and do the same with their 'Win95_98_ME' and 'Win_NT_2K_XP', only this time replacing it with the Linux source.
(Sorry, not as funny as it could've been. I'm still waking up
Jumping Ship (Score:1)
why linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep wondering why big companies like HP and Sun choose linux, instead of freeBSD. Although I'm not an expert on any of them, as far as I understand the BSD structure resembles SunOS and HP/UX more than Linux. Both BSD and linux are open source, and the BSD license even seems to be preferable to companies if, in the end, they decide to go closed source anyway.
Can someone explain this to me?
Re:why linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really, SunOS used to be BSD based but changed that alot when they combined their stuff with AT&T's and ended up with System5Release4. Depending on the Linux distro sometimes Linux will end up closer to a SVR4 Unix.
> I keep wondering why big companies like HP and Sun choose linux, instead of freeBSD
Guess what OSX is based on
Re:why linux and POSIX (Score:2, Insightful)
Something else they're not thinking about is that Linux is not 100% POSIX-compliant. that's going to piss off a lot of senior engineers who have to port legacy apps from HP-UX/Solaris (or, shudder, older Unixes) over to Linux.
Re:why linux and POSIX (Score:3, Interesting)
bandwagon and mindshare... CIOs have heard of Linux, not all of them have heard of *BSD. That's sad, because the BSDs are far more mature at a system level and I think they probably scale better. Then again, Sun and HP have Solaris and HP-UX for selling scalability.
An interesting question this point raises is: do IBM/HP/Sun consider Linux good enough to support small applications, but not good enough to be any real competition?
For instance: IBM sell special cheap zSeries processor nodes for running Linux VMs, but you can't buy a whole machine full of them. You still have to buy a "proper" node. They want you to run Linux beside zOS not instead of it. Clearly they're more worried about people running bind or Apache on non-IBM hardware than with people using Linux to do serious OLTP or something.
Is all this big guy support of Linux the equivalent of "damning with faint praise"?
Re:why linux (Score:1)
Secondly, linux is more well known to the public than any bsd variant, so it wins in marketting.
Also linux currently is more scalable to higher end systems than freebsd, although this may change in the future. And companies like HP and Sun both offer some very high end servers, on Sparc and PA-RISC respectively, which freebsd also does not support.
Re:why linux (Score:2)
It is missing SMP in i386 at least, which given their backround, Sun could help greatly with.
Re:why linux (Score:1)
Re:why linux (Score:1)
Re:why linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is a convenient tool for IBM to rescue their big iron from obscurity, for HP to save themselves from obscurity, and for Sun to sound like they're not falling behind IBM and HP.
There's an argument that picking a GPLed OS means that competitors can't commercialise their work, but I'm not convinced about this one. If you look closely, few lines of code have come out of these houses. They're much more interested in making sure that their hardware can run Linux, or Linux apps, than in supporting the general Open Source / Free Software movement. It's a careful play to ensure that if the OS ends up being commoditized, people don't pick Intel's hardware.
Re:why linux (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:why linux (Score:2)
Re:why linux (Score:1)
The GPL prevents this by saying if you redistribute the program with changes you have to redistribute the source code as well.
Re:why linux (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't speak about Sun or HP, but some time ago SGI started working on tons of stuff for Linux, including but not limited to their XFS filesystem. More info: http://oss.sgi.com.
It's pretty clear, when you think about it, why they chose to release their valuable technologies for Linux rather than BSD: the GPL. GPL is, contrary to what Microsoft might say, a pretty business-friendly license. If a business spends billions of dollars over decades developing, say, XFS, then releases it under a BSD-style license, then anybody can incorporate that technology into their commercial products for free.
On the other hand, releasing XFS for Linux under the GPL means SGI gets to say they have XFS on IRIX and also on Linux, but it does not mean that Sun can put XFS in Solaris or whatever.
You can't make any money, directly, off of producing GPL'd code, but you can at least prevent your competitors from benefiting from your work.
Re:why linux (Score:3, Interesting)
GPl in => GPL out.
BSD in => Closed Source out, GPL out, BSD out.
Closed Source in => Closed Source out, GPL out, BSD out (provide they buy the rights to the software, not just license it)
SGI could include BSD code and are then free to release their own work as closed source, BSD or even GPL - as they wish.
Re:why linux (Score:2)
No, the real reason is simply buzz. Mind share. There is nothing particularly wrong with BSD, but it isn't exciting and it doesn't get the press. It's viewed as old and a little stodgy. (To Sun, especially, it seems old and stodgy---the original SunOS was based on BSD and they spent a great deal to move to SysV, so going back isn't viewed as a sensible solution. )
Re:why linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone explain this to me?
Because developers tend to prefer the GPL, which garauntees that we won't be buying back the fruits of our own labor one day from someone who's taken the whole thing, added some decoration, and used it to are part of some kind of toll booth on the information superhighway.
Re:why linux (Score:1)
Alan Cox was asked this question recently and his answer was basically the same. Linux has achieved more visibility.
Looking at the way things are shaking out Apples OS X has finally made a Unix for the desktop. OS X is a Unix machine I could give my grandmother and not be swamped with how-to phone calls. Linux is still light years away for the desktop and probably won't make it, but its doing very well in the server market.
The Open Source crowd just doesn't understand what it take to build a real desktop OS for the masses. It's far more than putting a bunch of GUI widgets on a screen. Apple, IBM (OS/2) and like it or not MS have spent billions in R&D to make desktops your grandmother can use. Most Open Source desktop software still requires more computer literacy than the masses have or want to have. The masses want appliances. IMO Linux should stick to its strong suit servers.
Re:why linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Older versions of HP/UX weren't based on BSD; they could have been considered their own variant of Unix, as different as they were (possibly due to catering to their HP3000/mpe customer base). With HP/UX 10.x, they started going the POSIX-compatible route.
As for why they choose Linux now? Bandwagon jumping, plain and simple. Yes, we can make a ton of arguments in favor of Linux, but in the end, it's the higher-ups and the sales people that make those 'direction' calls. That's one reason why HP wants Compaq; their own Netserver line couldn't penetrate the market, yet Compaq's offerings would be great to fill that gap in HP's NT (and Linux) offerings.
Re:why linux (Score:2)
Also, having companies like Red Hat, Inc. (where I work) to talk to doesn't hurt - FreeBSD is low on corporate backing, FTTB.
Lip service. (Score:2, Interesting)
"The right track"? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll go out on a limb here, and predict that this is the beginning of an SGI-esque downward spiral into total irrelevance. Any bets on when Sun rolls out a new logo?
Re:"The right track"? (Score:1)
Why does this make Sun on the "right track now"?
I guess I felt they where on the "right track" when they purchased "Star Office" and released the code. That seems like a bigger deal to me than the new stuff their doing now.
Do you other
Re:"The right track"? (Score:2)
You're half right. They certainly need something to differentiate themselves from IBM at least (HP seems to be drifting aimlessly right now - not much of a threat). The problem for Sun is that Solaris isn't that something. It's a nice Unix, but it's not so much better that that people will base purchasing decisions on it. And what advantages it has now are gradually disappearing.
The question is, what do they do to differentiate themselves? Better management tools perhaps? Focus on the 'appliances' like Cobalt? Either of those would work IMHO.
Anyway, hedging their bets with Linux is the first of two steps. They need Linux in order to stay in the game, but clearly they need something else in order to win. They realize this and I'm sure there will be more announcements to come (or maybe the new Cobalt line is part of the new strategy).
Linux = low to midrange, Solaris == everything els (Score:4, Informative)
Solaris is known as "slowaris" because it is optimized for SMP systems. Single CPU boxes are cheap. Sun was getting rejected by potential customers because to get the full benefit of Solaris you have to buy a massive box. If they vend Linux then they can target both the cheapskates/small companies and the huge enterprise vendors.
Linux runs well on Sparc chips, BTW.
Re:Linux = low to midrange, Solaris == everything (Score:2)
Re:Linux = low to midrange, Solaris == everything (Score:2)
The low end server market is dominated by Windows. The easiest looking upgrade path from a small Windows box is a larger Windows box (whether is makes sense or not). The only bright spot for a third party vendor is Linux. It's unlikely that a IT shop that has tested the Linux waters and found them fine going to to be intimidated at tradign up to an eight way Solaris box.
Methinks ABIcheck may be a Linux appcert (Score:1)
Disclaimer required: that's my opinion, not my employer's, and I'm biased.
Sun's Press Release (Score:2)
The program, announced Thursday, comprises three ambitious goals to be met in the coming year.
Sun will ship for the first time a full implementation of Linux on a new line of general-purpose servers aimed at providing "edge" services to environments such as workgroups and remote offices. New single- and multiprocessor systems, to be announced mid-year, will use the x86 architecture and be capable of running thousands of Linux applications natively.
Sun will dramatically expand its line of Sun Cobalt[tm] Linux appliances, the world's leading Linux-based appliance systems. Look for innovations beyond the current eight-inch-square Qube[tm] and the 1.75-inch-high rack-mountable configurations. Sun's Cobalt server appliances start around $1000 and have an installed base of more than 100,000 units.
Sun plans to participate more aggressively in the Linux developer community by freely offering key components of its Solaris[tm] operating environment software, and by releasing tools to help developers ensure compatibility between the two Unix[R] derivatives.
Delivering Value
Sun's commitment to the Linux operating system brings additional value to customers of its Solaris/SPARC[tm] architecture. Already, Sun systems have built-in compatibility with Linux, so that any Solaris-based system can also run Linux applications. New software such as Linux Compatibility Toolkit (LinCAT), announced today, can help simplify the process of assuring that Linux applications will run on the Sun Fire[tm] family of servers. And in the future, Sun's upcoming Solaris 9 Operating Environment will provide additional built-in Linux commands, utilities, and interfaces.
For Linux users, the new program will make key Sun[tm] Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) technologies available to the Linux platform, including the iPlanet[tm] Directory and Web servers, Forte[tm] for Java[tm] development tools, the Java/XML platform, Project JXTA, StarOffice[tm] productivity suite, Sun[tm] Chili!Soft ASP, and the Sun Grid Engine.
"We will now offer our customers an incredible value proposition by delivering our binary-compatible industry-leading SPARC/Solaris system family, which starts at less than one thousand and goes to nearly ten million dollars, along with our new Sun Linux low-end servers and Sun Cobalt appliances for emerging edge services applications," said Ed Zander, Sun's president and chief operating officer. "And with our Sun ONE Java- and XML-based software platform, developers can write to one software platform and run their applications or services across a vast array of systems."
Open for Business
Sun is already one of the largest providers of intellectual property to the Open Source development effort.
Sun today contributes resources and technology to free and open source projects including: OpenOffice.org, GNOME.org, Mozilla.org, Apache.org, NetBeans.org, X.org, WBEMsource Initiative, the University of Michigan NFS version 4 Linux port, the Grid Engine Project, and Project JXTA.
Now, Sun plans to take an even more active role in contributing software and expertise to the Open Source software movement.
"We have some of the industry's most advanced Unix, Java, and XML experts now working to advance Linux with the key mission-critical features of the Java platform and Solaris operating environment," Zander said. "By adding the Linux community to the hundreds of thousands of Solaris developers, and the nearly three million Java/XML developers, Sun's customers have unified access to the broadest array of innovation in the industry on which to provide services. Sun remains the best open business opportunity for developers."
Pushing the Envelope
Sun is working on a number of fronts to support and further the work being done in the Open Source community, and on the Linux code base in particular.
Today, Sun released an application development tool, ABIcheck, to the Open Source community; the tool helps ensure compatibility between Linux releases.
In the future, Sun will offer contributions to the Linux kernel.
Sun will expand its partnerships with the Linux community to provide native support of Linux on SPARC systems for both the telecommunications and embedded markets. Companies such as SuSE and Lineo support Linux native on Sun's SPARC microprocessors today.
Lineo will adapt and support Lineo's Embedix embedded Linux operating system on UltraSPARC[tm] processor-based end user-developed custom hardware.
Sun will support its Linux products with a rich set of support and professional services.
Sun will support Linux on its key StorEdge[tm] line of storage systems and software.
GNOME, the most advanced Linux user environment, will become the preferred desktop for Solaris when GNOME 2.0 begins shipping later this year.
Also Java 1.4 out (Score:2, Informative)
/LarsWestergren
Re:Also Java 1.4 out (Score:1)
Re:Also Java 1.4 out (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Also Java 1.4 out (Score:2)
Are you new?
--saint
You forgot SunFire, Scott. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if you were to port Linux to your SunFire platform, you could have a direct competitor with IBM's Mainframe Linux. How is that?
Imagine taking an E15k system... Setting it up as a single domain running Linux. Now, under that, use the Usermode Linux to create VM servers. No longer would this platform limit a system to particular boards... All these VM's could run in that large single domain, sharing it's CPU's, disks and IO. This would compete directly with IBM's implimentation of Linux on the mainframes.
Now let's take it a step further... IBM's mainframe is great for Linux VM's needing I/O intensive tasks. It's CPU isn't meant for many large number crunching VM's. The SunFire are. So while IBM gets big offering services on Linux VM such as Samba & NFS file services, Oracle & DB2, Enterprise email... You could be selling for the CPU intensive side. Graphics apps, XML and PDF parsers, engineering, etc.
Sun, you cannot afford to not do this. Sun's big server market will depend on it. It's only a matter of time before IBM fill's the niche for the CPU intensive VM's... And while I do like IBM and their commitment to Linux, I'd hate to see Sun drop off the radar. Competition is what brings about inovation, it's almost cliche.
*TheDarb
GUI-Lords.org
Re:You forgot SunFire, Scott. (Score:3, Insightful)
..
The main factor limiting getting past this limit is that few people have access to this sort of hardware to do the development work. Think of how Linux got on the mainframe, a few bored IBM engineers had an old mainframe and got hacking. It got into the wild mostly because that implementation runs on top of the normal mainframe OS, and can co-exist with other mainframe apps. It got into production mainframes for precisely that reason. If it had required the mainframe to be dedicated to Linux we'd still be waiting.
Can the same happen with the E15K's? I don't think it will. Why? Because you'd have to run the Linux kernel on top of Solaris! This simply doesn't make sense when you'd be far better off running the apps natively under Solaris. The only way I see Linux getting onto that sort of hardware is if Sun (or IBM ) give access to one of these multi-processor machines to some developers. That's the short-term view. The linux kernel will continue to scale better and better, and I have no doubt it will get there, but for Sun to have mentioned it in that press release it would have to be there now, and it obviously isn't.
Besides which, you try convincing a conservative IT manager to spend US$1M+ on an E15K to run Linux on it, when you don't have successful case-studies to show him.
These views are not endorsed by my employer, and are given solely on the basis of public-domain knowledge, so don't try reading too much into them.
Sun-dried Linux (Score:1, Interesting)
That would be good for Linux, I think.
--
Props to Hemos for correct spelling, at last.
Re:Sun-dried Linux (Score:1)
we've run into them so many times when they said, "oh you want iplanet for free, we'll give it to you - but we'll only give you the solaris version". "oh you want solaris, cool, we'll give you that for free too, but only if you buy a sun box". hook. line. sinker.
naturally we went the BEA route
Re:Sun-dried Linux (Score:1)
They ended up making the OS free, only paying for costs. (shipping/midea) granted its still ~$70. but it comes with several CDs, and other little goodies.
Re:Sun-dried Linux (Score:3, Informative)
(yes, once again - they're saying it's "customer demands")..
Sun.com down? (Score:1)
Borked?
or Slashdotted - or both?
Not exactly a good advert for sun is it?
Re:Sun.com down? (Score:1)
Re:Sun.com down? (Score:1)
java.sun.com is still not responding, though
I had no problem with sun.com (Score:1)
Purhaps you forgot your stuck on dialup?
Re:Sun.com down? (Score:1)
The traceroute stops at Alternet - that's from my Demon ISDN & my ethernet connected box in telehouse.
Must be a trans-atlantic thing or something...
jakarta (Score:5, Insightful)
http://jakarta.apache.org/site/news.html under "30 January 2002 - That flaming fireball in the sky..."
Sun's always been friendly to OSS as long as it gives them good press to be so. I'm not certain they are so good at heart. Maybe they were just scarred by microsoft changing the meaning of Java that they don't trust an ad-hoc group of unpaid developers to not do the same.
Cobalt is not the same as everyone else's Linux bo (Score:1)
If you need a general purpose server, go for Solaris and Sparc.
Kneejerk reaction (Score:2)
Sun is doomed one way or another (Score:2)
As for linux, Sun can pander to the market in some tacit fashion for now, but ultimately linux can destroy Sun's entire business. IBM knows this. So does HP. So does Intel. Sun's proprietary solution set is on its last legs, and in five years will be gone.
Short this company.
Sun's Core Business (Score:2, Informative)
Sun's Core Business has nothing to do with Linux on cheap, commodity X86!
Sun sells high-end systems, big-iron that competes with other high-end vendors. They make all the profit off hardware, JUST LIKE IBM, when IBM sells a big-iron server with either AIX, or Linux. So remember, these vendors are competeing with Hardware, not Software. Cheap commodity X86 isnt in the race for the very high-end.
Just like Cray! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just like Cray! (Score:1, Insightful)
And I'm sure I could find dozens upon dozens of failed low-end hardware providers too. Infact, if you have this innate sense for being right, why arent you a rich man already, seeing as how you obviously know in advance who is going to succeed in a market, and who isnt, in advance.
Re:Just like Cray! (Score:2)
And neither is Cray. Just a few days ago Cray announced [cray.com] over $9 million in orders for their SV1ex, and their SV2 project is coming along nicely. They're not exactly making a profit, but they're not in a crazy death spiral yet, either.
There's a big difference between being a niche player and being a dead company.
Re:Sun's Core Business (Score:1, Interesting)
Just for example, I'm pondering replacing a few Sun/Solaris servers with generic clones running Linux. The Suns work fine, but the ongoing cost of support contracts and potential upgrade costs, are pretty stifling. We're anticipating some growth, and it's just cheaper to buy a couple of spare Linux boxes and keep them in the wings as replacements or additions to the cluster. I no longer expect my systems to be reliable, I achieve reliability through redundancy and an inventory of spares. Sun equipment is too expensive to use use that way.
The high-end stuff will continue to exist for quite some time, but there's no growth left in that segment; that's why Sun has to try SOMETHING at the low end. Not sure if this will work for them, but but it's probably smarter than just sitting there milking cash out of a dying segment of the market.
Re:Sun's Core Business (Score:1, Insightful)
So, asthetics aside, and knowing that its the hardware sales that drive profit, what is the difference between IBM and Sun? To the point that IBM are seen around here to be so wonderful, and Sun to be an evil corporation with declining marketshare, and whatever else people want to prophesize to the detriment of Sun?
Not much? Thought so. We now return you to the normal Slashdot blinkered advocacy...
They might actually be waking up! (Score:2, Interesting)
"You might want to get into the Linux Beowulf cluster business. Cadence is rolling out some very nice tools to gang cheap Linux boxes together to speed up simulation runs during the design phase of projects . We have probably already bought our last high performance Sparc box to do computational simulations.
"Its nice seeing you guys realize that the world is moving on. You better get up in front of the herd and start beating a nice trail at a good pace or IBM will be setting both the pace and the direction of midrange and higher computing in 2 years using Linux.
"With the LSB 1.1 and the market momentum right now, most of the traditional Unix design tool houses like Cadence will be looking at Linux to grow their market. This doesn't mean that Slowlaris won't have some life left in it for some time, but it does mean that without a renewed focus on providing competitive computing costs you will end up like SGI in the movie industry. Linux is eating their lunch right now and is on its way to eating yours as well."
Partially explain the drop of Solaris x86? (Score:2, Interesting)
As much as I like Linux, I think Solaris on Intel was extremely good, and it's questionable whether dropping that was a good idea.
Re:Partially explain the drop of Solaris x86? (Score:2, Interesting)
See my pervious comment since I am too lazy to get the links again. here. [slashdot.org]
New x86 IO systems? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since Sun will not be worrying about Windows support, they can extend the architecture a bit. Still use x86 processors, but enhance the surrounding systems to make it less PC-like and more big-server-like.
Re:New x86 IO systems? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:New x86 IO systems? (Score:2)
I'm not sure how I'd feel about Sun manufacturing intel-based hardware using their own "architecture extensions".
I thought the point here was to still sell sparc machines, just offer an alternative to slowlaris, anyway?
EEEE! (Score:1)
Thank Oracle (Score:1)
Sun is preempting the certain loss of hardware sales here. They can explain that linux runs well on the existing SPARC machines (prob. better than x86 for big-memory machines) and that moving to linux doens't mean 'throwing away their existing infrastructure'. The PHB's PHB will like that idea.
Good for them - companies that can adapt to linux will survive. Solaris has been headed this way anyway, what with the filesystem reorganization and GNOME, etc.. Even though Oracle forced their hand, they've been preparing for this for quite a while.
Linux as a replacement for Solaris (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone believes what Larry says, it looks like Oracle will elevate Linux to the top tier of supported OS, probably at the expense of Solaris. This really sucks for me because I committed to the SPARC/Solaris platform about 8 months ago. Oracle support of Linux wasn't quite there yet and I didn't have time on my side. I always thought a transition to Linux was inevitable, but I thought it would take another year or two.
From Sun's point of view, they are probably looking for a smooth way to transition SPARC Solaris to SPARC Linux, so as to drop Solaris entirely as a cost-cutting measure. Sun needs either a huge boost in SPARC CPU performance or lower pricing, preferrably both. Otherwise they will get killed by high-end X86 systems.
I think the ultimate fate of Sun/Solaris will be the same as Digital/VMS: It's another attack from the commodity boxes, armed with a standard operating system, this time without the M$ nonsense.
Re:Linux as a replacement for Solaris (Score:2)
That's interesting.. By no means do I have an inside view into Sun or anything, but from what I've seen, they've been arrogantly avoiding that idea. We run Linux on an older Ultra 30 box at work (our Amanda backup server), and I find it to be much easier to manage than the Solaris boxes we have.
I remember when I started working with Solaris systems.. So many things were missing from the OS (well, from my longtime Linux user perspective). Sun is, perhaps rightly, concerned about having databases and web servers running efficiently on their operating system, but they haven't made it any easier to use. I suppose that changes a bit with Gnome coming with the OS, but we'll see.
I'd really like to see them support Linux on their lower-end Sparc hardware more (ie, the 8 processor market). Looks like they might make me a bit happier by supporting some management software for their StorEgde RAID arrays (very cool..)
I guess it's not Sun I should really be worrying about, though. Many organizations that run Solaris/Sparc systems have proprietary software that generally isn't available for Linux/Sparc.
We were going to try to move one of our bigger servers to Linux, but we just couldn't get software.
Re:Linux as a replacement for Solaris (Score:2)
It sure looks that way, but they can't hang on like this forever.
In any company, you have some staff and management whose very existance depends on maintaining the status quo; in this case that means Solaris. If history serves as a guide, they will continue to maintain the status quo until the liquidators come to dismantle the cubicles.
I have no more insight into Sun than you do, but Oracle's shift towards Linux will for Sun to follow, no matter how much they try not to.
Of all the reasons why hardware companies fail, one of the biggest is the tendency to hang on to proprietary systems until the last dollar of revenue has been extracted. By then, low-ball competitors have commoditized the market, and it's too late to salvage anything.
Hardware/Software support under S*Linux (Score:2)
If Sun worked with the Linux people to get full hardware support for things like the Sunrays and the SPCi card, and for (cough) Solaris/Linux binary compatability (Heh, the WINE folk have done a harder ask...) this would make a lot of smaller servers switch to Linux, which is more suited to the hardware.
--Azaroth
Sun and .NET? (Score:2)
It's all about Java (Score:2)
HOWEVER, until Sun frees Java, they will always be viewed askance by the community. I'd understand keeping Java closed if it were a cash cow. It's not. Not freeing Java doesn't seem to make sense from a business or any other perspective. Sun execs and lawyers: wake up and smell the coffee!
Sun will NEVER port Linux to the enterprise class (Score:2, Interesting)
Oracle might generate customer demand for Linux (Score:2)
There is no demand for an E15K Linux box because Oracle currently supports Solaris as a tier-1 platform, with varying degrees of support for anything else. I am an Oracle customer. To me, it looks like every patch or install kit is written and tested on Solaris, and then ported to the other systems. I once worked at a DEC/VMS shop and saw what it's like to be at the other end of the Oracle support spectrum.
If Oracle is serious about migrating their corporate systems to Linux, then it follows that the best support will someday be for Linux boxes instead of Solaris. If we ever get to that point, someone will bring Linux to the E15K. New customers will choose Linux for the same reason I chose Solaris: it's a matter of choosing the best-supported platform for Oracle. No matter what the merits of any OS, it's not worth the headache of being the stepchild of Oracle support.
Hypothesis (Score:2)
I believe we are always going to need... (Score:2, Redundant)
I think Sun aught to put a bit more work into increasing the power and reducing the cost of their equipment. Get more of it out there while still making a decent profit.
Three Million Java/XML developers? (Score:2)
Three Million Java/XML developers? Where are they hiding? Or are the vast majority of them still inexperienced rugrats?
I do know a few people do are Java developers, but the C and C++ crowd still outnumbers. Even with the job market as it is today, finding Java developers (well, at least good ones with some experience) is still hard to do. I think that three million figure quite an exaggeration. More like 1/4 of that.
Sun is doing an SGI! (Score:2)
Mikael
McNealy wear Penguin Suit (Score:2)
Excerpt: "Lou Gerstner didn't have to do this. If I just say we're going to spend a billion dollars on this, can I take this off?" said a sweltering McNealy, referring to IBM's loud move to spend vast sums of money on Linux in 2001.
If Sun were a TV show, they would have just had their 'jumping the shark' moment...
Re:why sun? (Score:2, Interesting)
for starters, sun does not make pcs. sun machines are meant to be used as servers or serious number-crunchers.
when you could get a cheaper, better-looking Macintosh running OSX, which is much more advanced and more stable than anything
how can you say that osx is more stable than sunos/solaris? have you ever used these oss? how can you say the mac is more advanced than a sun-box? show me a super-high-performance mac server and we'll talk. and about the way it looks...
macs look like a child's toy. they're 'pretty' with rounded corners. tell me - do you prefer coke over pepsi because the red can is prettier than the blue can?
Re:Sun surrenders!!! (Score:2)