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.

Comments

Re:For free

[AKnightCowboy]

Dind't they give it for free some time ago?

Solaris 8 used to be free. Solaris 9 has some funky license (unless they've changed it again) where it's free for single processors and then you pay per processor slot capable on multiple processor capable systems. I.e. a dual CPU capable system with one processor still pays dual CPU prices, a 64 CPU capable Starfire pays the 64 CPU price even if you have 12 CPUs, etc. Here I was advocating going back to Sun because of Red Hat's incredibly high Linux pricing for servers.. I guess we might as well stay with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the cheaper Intel hardware. Sun has you coming and going with their overpriced hardware and now charging high prices for the OS.

Re:Subscription model or source code model?

[Allen Zadr]

Sun Freeware has been up since 1996 (maybe longer). Sun is NOT new in the OpenSource game. Remember, first and foremost, sun has ALWAYS been a hardware vendor. While they make money from Solaris, it's not enough to get by.

Selling x86 Linux servers is actually quite profitable for them these days. Not as much of their market as the Enterprise Class SPARCServer market though.