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Sun Announces New AMD-Based Product Line
Transfan76 writes "Today Sun Microsystems has officially announced an alliance with AMD. They "have formed an alliance to deliver a broad range of AMD Opteron[tm] processor-based systems, Sun also announced it plans to offer its Java Enterprise System on the AMD Opteron processor and is significantly extending the reach of its Solaris Operating System (OS) and leadership in the 64-bit space." You can read the official press release from Sun here. And the AMD release here." We previously reported rumored plans to this effect a few days back.
and about time! With this new competition intel has really got to get their act together. For quite a while now AMD has been providing cheaper (but not always faster) processors, however with their new AMD64 line they've really come into themselves. Well done AMD!
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
I assume that AMD at this point in time has no plans for any SPARC CPUs, but I wonder how much AMD could do if they got all Sun's SPARC resources and basically bodged together a next gen SPARC from the Opteron. But something tells me that x86-64 is the way of the future if Sun don't want to slip behind more.
Considering that these are JAVA based systems, why pick the processor that bent over backwards to be x86 compatible? I know, they won't be using x86 instructions, but what strategic significance is there for going with AMD vs. Intel or IBM?
I wish the both of them the best of luck, and one of these days, may good engineering prevail. I hope.
a competitive move towards the OTHER major x86 unix-like system, linux. why would sun do this? 2 reasons..
1. Make it look like they arent with linux to avoid any crap with sco
2. After helping linux, they realize this thing could turn into a giant that could eat them in one bite
thse could be the reasons.. that or they really mean to compete with IBM and intel and microsoft, who has often rubbed them the wrong way (mainly the ugly java incident) I bet their main goal is microsoft, and since intel is often in bed with microsoft, intel's probably their second target, that and amd doesnt share ties with microsoft (none that I've heard of) so the amd platform would be a much safer choice, that and they are technologically better at times.
What I really wouldnt mine seeing pushed is PPC cpu, that's a good little processor, and let's face it, x86 is old technology that keeps getting stuff added on. PPC's are perfect for multimedia and most things that people do, sell them in a mass production, they become as low priced as the x86...
intel and microsoft are the only reasons we're still using x86's.. would be cool if AMD started on a PPC clone (if legally possible) as a secondary market for processors..
if we could start seeing that, then that would be sweet, and that could help sun too if they want to enterprise on their product.
It could be one of those ideas whose time has finally arrived. My experience with Java hasn't been all that great. There are several competing Java VMs and each had idiosyncracies and problems that precluded the "write once, run anywhere" philosophy from actually working. Getting Java to work under Linux is not quite as simple as under Windows or MacOS, and messages on news groups, the Fedora Core lists, and in local LUGs attest to this.
/opt (not exactly LSB, but I can live with it) and exited. It didn't set JAVA_HOME or adjust any user PATH variables, but hunting through the instructions I was able to find the correct chapter (I knew this before reading, just wanted to confirm that they did say so).
The latest releases are *much* easier, however. I downloaded and installed the latest Sun Java SDK on a Fedora Core 1 machine. The graphical installer put everything in
Now Java has always had this (perhaps undeserved) reputation for being slow. Not the case with Java/Fedora. Whether it's the NPTL that's part of Fedora or optimizations in the Java VM itself, the jar files I tried opened as quickly as natively compiled applications. Responsiveness was just as good. For the record I tried Jedit, Arachnophilia, Mindterm, WeirdX and a bunch of math/science applications for fractals, mapping, function graphing, etc.. Yes, a lot of the applications are already available natively under Linux, but the idea that I can move my desktop environment to anywhere without setting up automatic NFS mounts, playing with VNC servers, or fussing with roaming profiles is pretty cool.
Now I'm not as big a Sun fan as I was five years ago, but I think this technology is pretty cool.
JDS (Java Desktop System) runs off Gnome etc.
Solaris is moving to Gnome (ie JDS) to be default UI.
ie if you had a Sun system and a Linux/x86 system with JDS side by side, the UI would be identical.
At Comdex they had JDS running on a Sun Ray (which runs of SPARC/Solaris servers)
So, you'll get your wish ^-^
Sun offers a fairly advanced compiler and, perhaps more importantly, "performance libraries" on their Sparc machines. Intel is doing the same on their machines -- Linux, FreeBSD (via port), and Windows. Will Sun do likewise with AMD or will they just help GCC in the amd64 optimization area(s)?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Sun's viable product is Solaris. If they can get people running this on x86 then Sun has a chance. I think many companies are not ready to trust their apps to Linux or BSD. I know mine isnt. I hear that Solaris on x86 isnt quite right yet though. Also major software vendors like oracle dont seem to fully support Solaris on x86. Anyway in my view Solaris is what makes Sun. Their hardware is too expensive and their Java appserver aint for shit.
I like traffic lights
Itanium 1 blew chunks. Very slowly.
Itanium 2 actaully contains a fair bit of Alpha technology, and in the right situations is not a bad processor. (It's not my style of processor though, I'm anti-VLIW pro-OOO).
However, if all the investment within DEC and Compaq and HPaq that was diverted to other projects over the last few years had been maintained for the Alpha project, I'm sure that the hypothetical late-2003 Alphas would be more powerful than the I2.
It was burried alive, there's no denying that.
Good to see a bunch of them at #2 on the top-500 still.
However, I think it's too late to revive it, that's just a pipe-dream now. (As it's potentially commercial suicide for HP, amongst other reasons.)
I think that only IBM can be the new DEC now. Intel/AMD/HP have got backward compatability 'issues' (yeah, the Itanium's an albatross round their neck, and it's only a few years old!). The only "fresh start" that's got a future is the Power architecture. IMHO.
(And I say that as an Alpha-fanboy, and not that Power is particularly fresh, but it was designed with as much of a future as the Alpha was - 20 years or so, assumig they don't commit chipicide.).
YAW
Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
All I can say is that it can't be worse than what Sun's traditionally made.
I at one point had an opportunity to come in contact with a prototype embedded Sparc chip and reference board. The thing drew *70 watts* of power. For an embedded board.
My old university was recently (okay, it's been a few years now) donated a 64-unit sparc cluster by a national laboratory who was done with it. Last I'd heard they only had 2 units powered up -- they needed to have their (large, heavy-duty) server room refitted with more power and better A/C before they could turn on the rest.
Honestly -- there's no way AMD could do any worse.
Sun Operating System... am I the only one that instantly thought of S.O.S. as an acronym?
This could be one of the final nails in itanic's coffin (or maybe the iceberg that finally sinks it.)
When will Carly wield the axe? And what will intel do now?
Stick Men