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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?""
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.
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.
Did you ever had to deal with Sun Support?
I have and I can tell you they are worth every penny.
When our main DB Server died a couple of very very horrible deaths Sun flew one of their engineers in from the States and they took the thing apart, spare parts where there within the hour (try that in Toronto Rush hour traffic) and General the moment I opened a call I had someone on site without as much as a flinch.
Was it "expensive"? Not if you consider the amount of money the company was loosing while the server was down (and yes, it should have been clustered, but they didn't see a need for it until it went away, now it's on a 6800 and clustered).
M.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
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.