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Sun Plans Solaris Subscription Model
heliocentric writes "As reported in this CNet article. In an effort to make its version of Unix compare more favorably to Red Hat's Linux, Sun Microsystems plans in coming weeks to begin selling its Solaris operating system through a subscription model." On the down side, there was coverage of the announced layoffs, as well as the MSFT case being won. The article makes a good point, that Sun has reinvented itself before, and that no one should write Sun off.
What the article's author doesn't get is that maybe Redhat is not so much succesfull because they have a subscription model, but more because their is direct interaction with their userbase (fedora) and the source is Open. A subsciption fee based model tends to be *really* good for the vendor (guaranteed, known cashflow that you can put on the books as revenue) and not so good for the end-user (expensive, bad for your cashflow). I'm sure that this time, the users have wisened up, and are using Linux.
also, the MSFT case wasn't *won* it was settled...
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
I'm not writing them off...I'm investing in them. But I'd wish people would stop using the 'Sun Rises' play on words.
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
First both Sun and Microsoft invest in SCO, after it *trys* to get freaky with linux. Then Sun and Microsoft settle some lawsuits, which ends up with MS forking over serious money (in the order of 1 billion). And now this. Now they try to pull some pay for updates crap. They sound more and more like one company the more time goes by. It would be interesting to see how much stock MS owns of Sun, if any ofcourse.
"Their problems are very real and very severe, but I would say they are far from terminal."
Am I the only one who groaned?
Dind't they give it for free some time ago?
Hasn't Sun Microsystems licensed Unix code from SCO? Wouldn't a Solaris subscription funnel even more money to SCO (even though that would only be an unintentional side effect)?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
The article makes a good point, that Sun has reinvented itself before, and that no one should write Sun off.
Pfft, really now? If Sun has *really* truly reinvented itself, and has started to see the light of things, then why is Java still not Open Sourced?
The subscription plan will make it clear that Solaris costs less than Linux and will dovetail with Sun's argument that its version of Unix performs better as well.
To be (a software vendor), or not to be (be a hardware vendor instead). That is the question...
And Red Hat can't throw in a free server as part of a software promotion the way Sun can.
Why does this remind me about how Bill Gates was talking about hardware becoming free?
Come on Sun. Make a good archetecture, and put your best efforts into making BSD / Linux run well on it. Solaris may possibly be destined to the dead path of SCO Unix. Learn from IBM.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
"In an effort to make its version of Unix compare more favorably to Red Hat's Linux, Sun Microsystems plans in coming weeks to begin selling its Solaris operating system through a subscription model."
I would be more concerned about a possible unfavorabe comparison with MS. Both MS and Sun sell proprietary operating systems. They would need to tread carefully to not scare off the folks that have started considering *nix alternatives to keep Microsoft's tentacles out their bank accounts.
Sun also needs to make it clear to people that they are really paying for support (with a small bit for licensing) and not the MS-style license renewal. Otherwise a comparison with RHAT is not valid.
Saw an academic's analysis of Sun lately along the lines of "Sun is spending massively on R&D. Why is Sun doing this instead of copying the successful strategies of HP and IBM? Sun should pull the money out of R&D and immediately better its bottom line while lowering the costs of its products."
... but Sun's record is a bit better than theirs in this.
And I think, didn't Sun get to be where it once was by catching the front of the wave of network computing (become Internet)? Isn't their core skillset being able to ride such a wave well? Isn't their future in getting out ahead of the next one so they can apply that skill again?
R&D is always risky, but as a long-term investor, shouldn't you be buying R&D? As corporations put less and less into it (as most are) what's left becomes potentially even more valuable when and if it pays off. Of course, you don't want to go into the equivalent of the old Xerox or AT&T which never properly capitalized on their best inventions
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Boycotting MSFT is not easy/practical
I've been doing it for years. It actually is quite easy if you are willing to pay for good software or find a good free replacement for the MSFT (or Windows only) software you think you need. For example, there are lots of office suites out there and more individual spreadsheets and word processors that are office compatible.
In any case, if you are running a Sun OS, what is the likelihood that you have any MS products on it? Didn't IE for Solaris get discontinued years ago?
I don't think the software world is as black and white as you make out. Sun are the driving force behind OpenOffice, which I'm very grateful for.
I certainly don't intend to start boycotting them any time soon.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
I would be more concerned about a possible unfavorabe comparison with MS. Both MS and Sun sell proprietary operating systems.
True, but Sun also offers an open-source OS, i.e. one from each camp (so to speak). MS offers only proprietary/closed-source* OSs.
* Recent compromises and other goings-on notwithstanding.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
In an effort to make its version of Linux compare more favorably to Sun Microsystem's flavor of Unix, Red Hat plans in coming weeks to again begin selling its Linux operating system through a flat fee model.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
They will slowly lose more and more to the PPC based systems and better OSes (Linux/MacOS X). The Apple offerings won't make a large dent, the expected IBM systems will.
I would sell any shares in Sun you still have (I left long ago).
And customers don't like it. Do you think they're stupid? Generally subscription models mean the customer pays more, for not necessarily more service or features.
People are in general moving away from RedHat, not toward it. RHEL means lock-in, with less features. It may be OSS, but if you change the code - is Red Hat going to support your changes? No.
So this is the model Sun wants to emulate? Sun is already perceived as too expensive in general for a Unix. The people that have stuck with Sun tend to be those running specialized platforms they couldn't migrate out of too easily. Sun's best bet is the Chinese desktop deal, not trying to compete with Linux here in the States..
As a Java developer on some Apache projects, I'm not yet rushing out to boycott Java. I'll just deny Sun any of my money. Oh, wait a minute, I wasn't giving them any anyway.
How about I let Sun continue to lose money providing and supporting Java? That would be even worse than boycotting it, wouldnt it?
Also, beware of IBM bearing gifts. They are supporting OSS right now because they see the strategic value. But if their opinions change, watch them change their mind. It's like Oracle: they support linux as a way to keep OS costs down, but are against OSS database solutions. If (when) an OSS database gets to the point that it threatens Oracle or DB2, I could imagine both companies changing their stories about the value of OSS.
Why do I think that this idea has something in common with killall(1) implementation on Solaris, considering its possible destructive effects? Funny jokes aside, I really think this migh not be a smart move for Sun. I think they should think about it before they finally roll it out.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Sun as it once was will be no more. Essentially throwing in the towel with MSFT has gotten rid of the only thing Scott McNealy can blame for their failures. In a truer sense, Sun needs to open source Java and J2EE, their only techology play that they still have a good stake in. They've sold their high end server business, they're now trying to be an "also ran" in Linux and unlike HP they don't have a PC market. So, IP is about all they have left. Sure Sun has made great contributions, but anybody remember Digital Equipment Corp anymore? It wasn't so long ago DEC was #2 in the computer industry, now they're just a memory. Sun unfortunately will most likely be the same.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
"I've never looked at Microsoft or Sun in detail, and run all of my assumptions from Slashdot"
"On Slashdot I only read the articles about Linux and hate SCO with a religious fanaticism, all of my views on software companies are therefore based on the SCO case"
"I have been working in Software only a few years and have no understanding of the history of either Sun, Microsoft or IBM and am not aware of what Sun actually does"
I'm sorry to be so rude, but to base an opinion on either Sun and MSFT around the SCO case is like saying that Sony and Philips are the same company because of the Intertrust case.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
In a hard-hitting analysis of the Sun-Microsoft settlement, David Mohring argues that - aside from the monetary payoff - the gains for Sun from the terms and conditions "do not make any sense for Sun in the long term."
I was wondering if SUN is relevant, at all, these days. I'm seeing more and more companies skipping them by and implementing some sort of x86 solution. Mostly because their products can be approximated with someting much cheaper.
That's were their R&D will prove to make or break them. Without it, they, I think, will become less an less desired in the market place. They'll need to come up with breakthrough tech in order not to be replaced by GNU/Linux, BSD or MS.
Because of the installer, RedHat was MANY folks' first Linux distribution. And I too love Slackware, but I can't use it universally because of it's lack of Oracle support.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
But along with the benefits come disadvantages. Discounting customer objections, the biggest one is how to ensure that all Solaris installations are currently running on an up-to-date subscription license. It may be possible to have the Solaris servers 'call home' to check on licensing status, but some corporate servers are behind strong firewalls, and this may not work. Another method would be to have the central package manager control subscription licenses for individual pieces of sofware, including the Solaris kernel.
Basically, a company would purchase their Solaris subscription, and licenses for a number of other applications they wished to run. A packaging system, possibly something like a customised version of GNU/Debian's apt-get could be used to then manage the installation and tracking of the subscribed packages. apt-get would monitor the usage of the pieces of software against a crypt() encoded database of expiry dates and times. If an access was attempted to be made after the subscription period had expired, apt-get would automatically un-install the software, and the client would need to contact Sun to renew their subscription, and Sun would then send them fresh program tapes or diskettes. What do current Solaris admins and users think of this scheme? I look forward to hearing the community's response!
Sun has a fundamental problem, one it shares with Microsoft. Both firms live by selling a premium product in a commodity market. Operating systems are no longer rare and valuable enough to pay for. Linux has demonstrated the feasability of a single, free, standard OS for all hardware, and despite ferocious resistance from many quarters, makes inexorable progress towards becoming the eventual standard.
Sun will die if they do not reinvent themselves away from selling proprietary OS products. Moves like the Sun Java Desktop are a sign of hope: Sun must adopt Linux and FOSS and become a services company selling value-added solutions. Then it can survive.
But changing a company like this is incredibly hard and there are few cases where it works. Most likely, Sun is doomed.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
MacOS X on Sun hardware. I've heard lots of the geeks at Sun have bought Apple notebooks because OS X is Unix and they love it. So, why not?
Java Enterprise System is not Solaris. From http://wwws.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem/ datasheet.html#5 (Java Enterprise System Datasheet)
Components
* Java System Directory Server 5.2
* Java System Identity Server 6.2
* Java System Directory Proxy Server 5.2
* Java System Application Server Platform Edition 7
* Java System Application Server Standard Edition 7
* Java System Message Queue Platform Edition 3.5
* Java System Message Queue Enterprise Edition 3.5
* Java System Web Server 6.1
* Java System Portal Server 63
* Java System Portal Server Secure Remote Access 6.3
* Java System Messaging Server 6.1
* Java System Calendar Server 6.1
* Java System Instant Messaging 6.2
* Cluster 3.1
* Cluster Agents for System components: Web, Application, Directory, Messaging, and Calendar Servers and Message Queue
Plus from the OS and Platforms it runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2.1
Solaris, the Operating environment, is still free (with restrictions).
Why not? SPARC, SPARC, SPARC, SPARC.
SPARC costs a bunch more than PPC from IBM and it's slower (1/2 the speed). Not to mention it would require recompiling every app. Won't happen. An Intel based switch would be more likely but I think it's out of the question with the new PPC's that are out (IBM has 2.5 GHz at 90nm available now).
Also, beware of IBM bearing gifts. They are supporting OSS right now because they see the strategic value. But if their opinions change, watch them change their mind.
Of course, and IBM are in the lucky position of having the "right thing" as a strategy. Microsoft and Sun are not in that position.
It's like Oracle: they support linux as a way to keep OS costs down, but are against OSS database solutions. If (when) an OSS database gets to the point that it threatens Oracle or DB2, I could imagine both companies changing their stories about the value of OSS.
Asking companies to support OSS even if it conflicts with their proprietary interests is not realistic. It all boils down to having the right proprietary interests. E.g. selling stuff higher up on the software stack, which is what Oracle is doing.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Do like IBM does. Every X330-class machine we buy comes with 3 years onsite service. There are no extra support contracts to sign, no extra expenses to track, everything we want in a hardware purchase comes with the machine, one line item on the invoice for everything.
Screw the software. Solaris is little more than Oracle-OS anymore. Make the hardware easier to buy and to support.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Sun could have gotten a lot by helping Linux in the computing space - any Unix is a good Unix relative to Windows in the datacenter (compatibility is a good thing). Sun has chosen to work with Microsoft to quash Linux instead of the other way around.
McNealy has become a liability, like Saruman. There is only one Lord of the Ring. Sun is doomed.
Sun -- used to have great technology, now plagued with dated hardware and poor business choices. Decent opsys, though, too bad it's stalled.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
"I'm biased, but $50-$100 per seat per year sounds good to me."
For a server OS? Huh?
Besides, you already have to pay yearly support to sun anyway. This just looks like its adding more cost where one didn't exist previously.
Its raising the cost of Solaris.
Another nail in the Sun coffin. Too bad.
You're right. People here should take a step back and look at all the drivel being posted. I haven't seen so many tinfoil helmets attached to one story for a long time. It's the done thing to be disparaging of Sun here nowadays, and to come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories involving Microsoft, SCO and aliens with flying-saucers. However, people are not so quick to do the same to IBM and HP. It makes one wonder.
Stick Men
Yes, but I don't think they see OSS as a great value anyway. There are couple of things they want to keep as open source. The operating system is one of them, and the reason is that this guy from Finland was able to come up with this operating system which pretty much emulates Unix and yet it is open without legal trouble (until SCO of course). That's where Linux become the choice. Before Linux we had bunch of different unix flavors. Now with Linux you have all sorts of advantages. There are lots of developers who can inspect the code, correct it etc... So it is a great value there. But Linux is a great value, not OSS. GNU nuts and few idiots turned this fact into open source is great type of propaganda. As we progress throughout these times we realize that, this open source thing is more about communism type of political system implemented on the software business, rather than something that has a great technical merit. Obviously nobody understands that, with all the success of the open source so far, each and every one of them comes with a reason not related to being open source directly. For example, mozilla is not a great browser because of being open, but because they funded hundrends of developers to develop it. AOL spent millions of dollars on the mozilla. It was open, but outside developers didn't make mozilla, AOL developers did. Similarly, open office is a gift from a commercial company. So, in essence we are seeing things that make open source viable from commercial companies. So somebody has to invest millions of dollars to make this software and then open it up with a purpose. Netscape proved us that open source is not the right idea. Abiword is another example. Sun might be the third company with its open office that giving up the software without a fee is not always a great thing afterall. If and when Sun goes out of business we will see that, people using open source is really doing that mostly out of desperation, and they are not getting the help they think they would out of this so called "open source community". Most of these people are teenagers lured into this communist type of propaganda, beliving that they are better than software developers working full time for a fee and that they can really change the world. The very fact that Slashdot turned into a news site constantly trying to make fun of Microsoft is a proof for the future of open source. Many slashdot monkies do not even know the technology quite well. They are more like monkies jumping up and down.
My conclusion and prediction is that, open source will lose is momentum gradually and will be a niche as it was before. People will stop thinking that open source will change anything and will realize that it is a great way of developing software, but not a way to change our lives politically. People will also turn against these GNU nuts as these GNU nuts get more desperate they will be more and more annoying and people will shout back.
Sun made its money selling expensive hardware that was rock-solid and fast -- and if you wanted to run Solaris, you bought a Sun box with a SPARC processor. Now Solaris is out for the x86 and hardware reliability and speed can be had at a fraction of the cost in x86-based servers from Dell, Compaq, IBM, and others. There is no longer a compelling argument to buy Sun boxes for most applications. Sure, there are some exotic, massively multi-CPU servers from Sun, but that's not bread and butter sales and there are nott enough of them sold to support a company the size of Sun (hence the layoffs).
We've seen this before with IBM. To the Slashdot youngsters who may not remember: It was IBM who created the x86 PC back in the early 80's. They were trouncing "hobbyist" venders like MITS (Altair), Imsai, and Cromemco. They owned the PC market as far as business was concerned. Then the smaller companies like Compaq hit the scenes aiming at the business market with equivalent, or better, performance at lower prices. When is the last time that you saw a new IBM brand PC for sale?
Next to take a hit: Cisco. Companies are seeing the cost advantage to going with simpler, less-expensive routers and firewalls wherever possible. Why pay for "Cisco-certified" personnel when they can buy an SMC router, some switches, and have their office up and running at a fraction of the cost? Again, there are niche areas where Cisco is still king, but that won't support a Cisco-sized company.
Don't forget that Sun also sells Linux based hardware. They just entered the market 4 years after IBM (AIX), HP (HP/UX and Tru64), SGI/Cray (Irix), etc.
For all your talk about Sun's board and value... Java makes no sense from a core competancy point of view. Java is now no more than really good marketing, as since 1997, Java has kept Sun's name on the tounge of most IT people - but it makes little sense as a corporate strategy.
Java's initial plans were to be a boost for Solaris OS web presense, and eventually a Java 'physical' machine processor. But then Java (the language) moved faster than the now dead Java machine (CPU) could keep up.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
A few weeks ago a group from Sun on tour visited our office. They were showing their new road maps and answering questions. I asked some general questions, giving them an opportunity for some sale talk.
:)
They seemed to be intrerested in selling two things:
1. development software (i.e. compilers and development environents)
2. servers (i.e. bigger machines that they earn more money
I asked them about workstations, and they hardly bothered to answer. My guess is that a Sun Blade 1500 doesn't give much profit at all.
They pushed hard for their C/C++ complier and their Java IDE, and all its new features, and how easy it is to use for those that are skilled in Visual Basic.
...Well they might have said more, but that's what I remebered
My conclusion was that they wantet to sell licences for software and servers most of all.
The article didnt have enough details. DOes th subscribtion cover maintenance cost or only right to use. If the maint cost is included we have been on subscription forever, they just called it maintenace? Does the OS stop if you dont pay next years subscription fee? If not I dont see any differance in the old vs the new.
As somone mentioned there is a CPU license on USED servers but that has always been included with new servers.
I skimmed the article but saw nothing about .edu pricing. I would think it would be interesting to see what they are going to do with schools.
My department has been wary of Sun's long term stability and is thinking of getting into different *NIX boxen. I'm pushing Apple, others like moving to Linux. The latter we can do by recycling our older PCs as they come out of the labs.
If Sun starts subscription pricing in the acaemic markets, they may lose some of their installed base in the university setting.
Sun, Microsoft and Oracle are going to be around for a long time. Whether people like it or not, all companies make mistake. Some worse than others. Is Sun on it's way back? No one knows for sure, but atleast Sun has realized it needs to change. That in itself is the biggest improvement. How they implement changes to get back to profitability has very little to do with the perception of being successful. Whether this new licensing model is a road back to health is questionable, but atleast Sun is actively trying to get back in the game.
I never believed the official party line with regard to Sun. I saw great ideas devoured by Java -- as even most Java-lovers realize, it is absolutely unsuitable for desktop applications, yet it was marketed for them, and it was used for them. Remember JXTA? That was Sun's peer-to-peer initiative. I saw JXTA come and go and hundreds of peer-to-peer developers with it. Peer-to-peer and Java -- truly a winning combination.
Nor did I believe that this was merely a coincidence or gross incompetence. When the internal Sun memo the Java problem was released, where Sun engineers complained that Java was too slow even for internal use on Sun's operating system, it was clear to everyone what had always been clear to me: Java was never intended to be a fast, powerful programming language. It was intended to be a way to sell big hardware, and to tie people to a single company: Sun. They sucked up a lot of mindshare. Neither proprietary nor truly free, Java existed in that same state of justifiable coercion (by means of copyright) as, say, MacOS X. But both Apple and Sun have as their goal the same thing as Microsoft -- to become the only vendor that matters, to create a monopoly. Microsoft is just better at it.
If you want a powerful, truly free, cross-platform interpreted language, try Python or Perl. Just because your PHB hasn't heard about them because there are no glossy brochures doesn't mean they can't kick Java's ass any day, even (or especially) in "mission-critical" application. Both are modern, object-oriented languages, idiosyncratic to be sure, but scalable no less. This very website is probably a larger application than most of the stuff that runs in your company. When did you last lose a comment on Slashdot? And Slashdot's code is ugly and hackish.
Now it turns out that Steve Ballmer and Scott McNealy are on the same football team. Their common enemy: Linux. Well, you know what? Linux can kick Sun's ass, and Linux can kick Microsoft's ass as well. And that's not because "Micro$oft sux0rZ!" It's because Linux has behind it not just governments and corporations, but the power of thousands of unimaginably creative volunteers. It's because Linux is free and will always remain so. Technology is not just about gadgets. It's also about freedom, and in the long run, freedom will prevail. Say about RMS what you want, but sometimes being a little overzealous can be a good thing.
Are corporations like Sun and Microsoft evil? Of course not. They are amoral (that also goes for IBM, by the way). They will do anything if it's good for their bottom line. If corporate murder was legal, every corporation would immediately start murdering people, other than by exposing them to toxic chemicals and unsafe workplace conditions. That's because if the current CEO doesn't like murdering people, they will simply be replaced by someone who does - shareholder value.
Linux is a little bit of everything. It incorporates elements of socialism (sharing your work, writing software in your free time), capitalism (being paid to program), of dictatorships (Linus coordinating the development process), of democracies (various associations with elected representatives), of meritocracy (those who develop, lead), of plutocracy (those who have money can get stuff done). This is in many ways a model for society. There is no single way to run a complex world. You need to combine the elements in a smart fashion.
Who cares about Sun? Who cares about Microsof
Here's an example of an actual sequence of conversations I've had:
"We really care about our relationship with your school and will go out of our way to solidify our reputation with you."
Yeah, but what's this about you changing the support structure for our yearly support contract?
"Oh, well, we found that most schools weren't using the contract to the fullest, ending up with blank software entitlements instead of using them all, and so we changed it. We now no longer cover things like backup software and directory services as part of your contract. Oh, and it costs more now too."
Sun lost out to Redhat because Sun (and their authorized reseller) could never get their act together, and their treatment of us bordered on abuse. When you'd pay $15K for a Sun and end up with yearly fees approaching $1K for the warranty period (since we'd have to cover OS upgrades) and then $3K for continuing maintenance, yet you could get a more powerful Dell server with better maintenance coverage and Redhat, in the long run, it was cheaper.
In other words, the TCO bug didn't just hit Microsoft - it hit Sun pretty hard, too.
I talk about stuff.
As a java fan, this couldn't be better news...
That 1.93 billion will go a long way towards helping Sun resolve it's money problems...
I want to mesmerize and destroy them.... write off,
phlew!
NO SIG
I am more likely to write Sun off after the last few days. I wonder if MS had anything to do with Sun going to a subscription model. MS will trash them also.
A subscription, OTOH, implies a recurring payment for goods delivered on a predictable recurring basis. Such as Playboy, for example. My subscription obliges Playboy to deliver on-time or lose my business. This seems to work for magazines, but would be a horrible idea for Tom Clancy novels: either the quality would go way down, or I would get zero product for my money.
And this seems to be the deal software subscriptioners are getting: low quality or zero product (missed delivery dates).
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
To the original post's point, there are several Apple/Mac compatible products that most people in Music think are far superior to the products that you are speaking of (of course now most of them come in Mac AND Win versions).... Still qualifies as paying your way around Microsoft.
More importantly to the Linux zealot in me, if it can work under Mac OS X, then it's not difficult to port it to Linux when the time is right (many, many professional software companies have Linux versions that are waiting for customers to request them - the only thing in the way from a Linux perspective is a unified desktop).
*Office environment is the most mainstream use of Windows, and where Linux freeware AND commercial efforts have mostly been focussing for some time. Of course pro audio tools are more specialized, and have less broad interest - thus less developers.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Used to be Sun was the biggest baddest Unix platform, chosen by those who needed real power and scalability. Customers paid a premium in hardware and software as well support contracts.
Now that Linux is making huge progress on it's Enterprise abilities there are several event horizons rapidly approaching.
1. x86 hardware is getting cheaper all the time. Sun hardware is still very much overpriced.
2. IBM's PowerPC Power4/Power5 & Power 970 chips are about to go mainstream. You will be able to buy multi-processor Power4/5 racks running Linux and supported by IBM. All IBM needs to do is start selling these monster CPU's to third party OEM's and the price will drop. Virginia Tech's PowerMacG5 super cluster is evidence of the coming storm. It's scored very high and has the highest ROI achieved in it's class. Switching it over to 1U XServeG5's will reduce it's physical footprint thereby reducing cooling and location space. Apple won't be the only PowerPC dealer. Linux runs very well on Power chips. IBM will assist in further kernel optimizations.
3. What's going on with Intel? AMD and IBM appear to be mopping the floor with them lately. Looks like they need to go back to the drawing board and start over with a new core outside of Itanium.
The more I think about it, the more I realize Sun is doomed. They may never be at the top again unless they get very competitive very fast. I work for a huge corporation that has quite a bit of Sun hardware and I can tell you most of the hardware is out of date and near obsolete. We are still running Solaris 2.6 in production, that was released in 1997! Why didn't we upgrade? Because we can run Linux a heck of a lot cheaper then Solaris and we can upgrade the hardware without killing our budgets.
Desktop is the primary reason why commercial software vendors are not writing commercial software for Linux (most of them do write it, but can't release due to incompatability problems against some dists, and not others).
Worse, Linux (except, now, with RedHat) makes it impossible to release software for Linux without suffering to support Linux itself... "I try to run your product but it says that it can't get permission to open X" and "Where to I get this gtk/gnome2 library that it says doesn't exist?". If you release to support RedHat WS or RedHat ES - then you can defer Linux support questions to their Linux vendor (which won't happen on a free O.S.) - even in the business world.
If OSS and Linux is dying (they are NOT mutually exclusive here) then the desktop question is what's killing it. When EVERYTHING is a choice, then there is no way to support it. Of course, OSS will never go away - but Linux (in it's current state) may die completely with a new breed of standardized distribution with a common development platform.
As a customer myself, Sun has exactly the amount of support that you pay for. If you want platinum 4-hour on-site support, then pay for it.
Finally - concerning Windows - Yes, that's the one Hold-Out. HP, IBM and SGI have all been supporting Windows from very early on, but Sun has not. That alone makes the Linux zealot in my happy.
Another problem is, as a late comer to the Windows Market, Sun will be crushed by HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway/eMachines and IBM whom have been in the Windows business for a lot longer, and have not otherwise had a lot of reasons to try to squash Sun.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
selling stuff higher up on the software stack, which is what Oracle is doing
It's also only a matter of time where MySQL et al reach a stage to challenge Oracle, isn't it? Admittedly it could be a *long* while, and Oracle stands to make plenty, mucho, big stinking piles of money in the years until that happens, but OSS development... it's not going to stop, right, the day won't come when MySQL (not least because they're also a company) decides "Ok guys we've done enough, let's pack up".
At some point the OSS options reach - for the pricing differential - comparative value, and the proprietary guys have to respond. It's only just starting to happen for the underlying OS, but all of the apps are going to face it sooner or later.
Until you can yank power, CPU, memory, fans, etc. LIVE without causing so much as a hiccup to running software SUN hardware will have a place in high availability envirnoments not well suited to clusters.
Linux is "hardened" via cheap boxes in a cluster, this doesn't work the best for mammoth DB's that lose millions a minute if they are down.
The axis of evil has been formed (MSFT-SCOX-SUNW), and they are out to suffocate the free world w/ IP law. Luckily we have some hefty backers (IBM, Novell).
Just keep wearing that tin-foil hat and sipping on that elektric kool aid, ok?
SUN's prospects are setting. Try to compile something under Solaris lately? It can be a real chore. They are becomming like SGI - very tough to get anything to compile. Too little too late.
I believe the parent explains a common misconception and Sun and SCO, so I hope someone mods it up.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
"test, test-and-set spinlocks" as opposed to what other kind of spin-locks?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
If (when) an OSS database gets to the point that it threatens Oracle or DB2, I could imagine both companies changing their stories about the value of OSS.
Unlike Oracle, IBM could lose all DB2 sales tomorrow and still be a highly viable entity, due to its significant services and mainframe sales. Its model is fundamently a good fit for OSS. I'd be highly surprised if they pulled back from Linux etc due to Postgre or MySQL. IBM has been undercutting Oracle on price for some time (although not the same extent as MSFT).
fedora kills the network on a any laptop whose network is on a PC-card
Got any evidence? There's a bunch of laptops round here using pccard ethernet adapters fine. You may have found a bug, but its likely limited to a specific hardware combo. RHEL may also suffer from that bug, as well as other distros.
isnt supported by all those binary things I use (nvida, vmware)
These both work fine on Fedora. I've been using them regularly.
Besides, you could always download Whitebox. Same software, same 5 years of updates, sans RH branding and package building.
Maintain it yourself. If you feel like paying someone else - well, buy RHEL - that's what people who buy it pay for.