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Sun's Schwartz Speaks Out on Linux, SCO
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview with eWeek Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president for software, states: "We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price.". Also: "IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?""
IMHO, Solaris is a great product, Solaris on Intel
is, for all intents FREE, but it does NOT compete with Linux, it requires much more effort to set up correctly, has far fewer applications available and because it is the domain of a single monolithic corporation it does not have the rapid pace of development of either Linux or the BSD's.
Personally I use Solaris, I also use Linux and FreeBSD, God help me I even use Wingoze, let's not speak ill of any *nix no matter how ridiculous the statements their corporate brass might issue.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
And when it comes to the high-end, corporate market, it's a pretty valid comparison.
If you went into a VP's office with CD-Rs of Slackware (or your favorite distro) and tried to sell those as being better than Solaris, you probably wouldn't get very far based upon name recognition and perception of stability.
However, if you went in there and compared Solaris against Red Hat Enterprise, you'd have a better shot at selling the Linux angle, because Red Hat has taken the Enterprise line and given it the perception of being superior to 'normal' Linux and packaged it with all the support.
Perception is reality with management, so in most corporate environments, smaller Linux distros won't even enter the equation. Though I disagree somewhat with Schwartz's comments, I can't say I fault his logic or his analogy.
I know why he says that Solaris is dramatically less expensive than Linux. It's because he works for Sun and therefore doesn't pay Sun's massive rates for service contracts. :-)
Seriously, Sun's post-sales services are pretty good, but nobody ever said they were cheap. Or not too expensive. Or not even just very expensive. The only word that comes to mind for decent cover is exhorbitant.
A top-end Sun service contract costs many many times the total cost of a Linux server system, including all its hardware, software, and permanent supply of Jolt cola, so clearly the man is engaged in baseless PR.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Solaris for Intel isn't really free. First, you'll have to pay to download it. Second, the "free" version has restrictions, as it is restricted to uniprocessor machines and you can't use it for commerical purposes.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
obviously you've either never installed solaris, or you are just a troll.
Beyond other compilers available post-initial-build, there is a CD that comes with the system called the "solaris software companion." On it is the gnu c compiler suites versions 2.95 and 3.2. Since you don't have any solaris administration experience obviously, I'll throw out a web site that anyone who has done a week of solaris administration would know. Then a few years from now, you'll know it when you need it.
the main solaris freeware site
Oh, I could toss out a few others, but really - that software companion CD comes with the solaris OS set anyway.
A little pkgadd, and bam - you're there. No worries - you can gui the install too.
I have spent several years administrating both linux and solaris (as to be distinguished from the various rantings I've already seen on this thread from people who obviously have not). Now to some extent I disagree with him very much - linux does have a place on servers. Its a matter of which ones though, really. :P
In my experience, if you have something that needs to be bulletproof - if you have something that, on the ultra-rare occassion there is a major problem that is beyond an admin's scope to fix, you can toss cores to a group and demand a quick response (if something dies with a linux box, there's really no one you can get lvl3+ support from) - then you put it on a solaris box. Solaris has a wide range of very useful functions and features that have yet to be mimiced in linux yet. It also has FAR better stability.
On the other hand...if you want to be able to run obscure things, if you want a very versatile and powerful development platform, if you want a cheap but powerful system to do something an enterprise sun box doesn't make sense for, then linux is definately your way to go. If you want to do computational clustering, still linux (though sun's grid engine can still be used, if you want...).
I've been a linux nut since 95. I have loved seeing it go from a hobby OS to something serious. Score a huge one for the underdog! On a high-end server though, it still has a long way to go to compare to solaris. For an easy dividing-line, I find anything from Sun that isn't a v880 or better to be pointless. Solaris for x86 sucks terribly, and once you're below the v880 line you should just be using an intel or amd (depending, again, on function) system, and running linux as its OS.
At least, that's my opinion...as someone with actual experiencerunning both.
According to "IBM steals server sales from Sun", IBM has been handily defeating Sun in its bread-and-butter market. As Sun's share of the UNIX server market shrinks, Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come.