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Sun Chief Calls Out IBM, Demands Compatibility

Posted by Hemos on from the don't-cry-for-me-argentina dept.

downbad writes "Sun's President, Jonathan Schwartz, yesterday published an Open Letter to the CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano, in which he alluded to "behavior reminiscent of an IBM history many CIOs would like to forget" - a reference to Sun's frustration that IBM isn't supporting Solaris 10 with WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, Rational and MQSeries products. In his "Dear Sam" letter - circulated via his blog - Schwartz refers first to the "long history of partnering" between Sun and IBM, and claims Sun customers have made repeated calls to IBM about having the choice to run IBM products on Solaris 10." *cough* Kettle, meet Pot.

7 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Well then let's see DTrace, ZFS, etc. on Linux by 21chrisp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is quite hypocritical of Sun to be saying this when so little of their software runs on anything but Solaris.

  2. kettle, pot? by CrankyFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was that necessary?

    Sun doesn't make all that many software products that aren't OS-type products. Off the top of my head, I can think of one big product they've made -- Java -- and they seemed to try to make it available on all platforms, though based on their rules (which hey, is true for any GPL-based software also. It's all about letting the people who created the software determine how it's released).

    It is, however, a little offensive to publicly decry a company not releasing their product on your platform, especially when that platform hasn't yet actually shipped its first non-beta version. Seems a little petulant.

  3. If Sun didn't take it seriously... by Allen+Zadr · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Until Solaris 9 (and now, 10), Sun themselves didn't take Solaris on x86 seriously. Now that Sun want's to try to take Solaris on x86 seriously, they expect IBM to suddenly jump in on it?

    If I want Solaris professionally, I'll buy a SPARC to run it on. If I want to play around with Solaris, I'll download it for x86.

    Allen Zadr is the Director of IT for a small software company

    --
    Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
    1. Re:If Sun didn't take it seriously... by Falsch+Freiheit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure that Sun's trying to get everybody to take Solaris x86 seriously so that they'll buy an Opteron server (Sun v40z or Sun v20z) from Sun, not so that anybody will really use Solaris x86 on, say, a Dell.

      Solaris x86 will always support anything you can buy from Sun in one of their Opteron boxes, and probably have lousy hardware support for running on anything else. (drivers for common non-Sun NICs and storage controllers will be missing, etc...)

      And I think they're going the Opteron route because Opterons have gotten to the point where they're a better CPU than UltraSPARC, but with a similar NUMA architecture, enabling for excellent throughput. When our Sun sales team (sales rep, an engineer, etc.) came out for the biyearly onsite slideshow, they were really bragging on about how the HyperTransport bus was all part of some technology-sharing plan with AMD, implying that it's basically the same thing as the bus arrangement in some of their current UltraSPARC offerings. (In other words, Solaris x86 on an Opteron might be cheaper and faster than Solaris on an UltraSPARC...)

      I think we're even gonna buy some Opteron servers from Sun this fiscal year. To run Linux on, though. A couple v40z servers should make a great database cluster.

  4. Dear Sun: Follow your own damn advice! by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's see - will Sun be making the API for their new file system's extra-special features available so that other *nix OSs can support it with their own native file systems?

    No?

    Well, will Sun make their new file system available for other *nix OSs?

    No?

    Well, will Sun have ANY compatibility between Solaris with their new, all-signing-all-dancing file system and any other OS?

    No?

    Then to Sun I say - "SHUT THE FBOMB UP ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE'S COMPATIBILITY UNTIL YOU ARE COMPATABLE YOURSELF!"

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  5. Dear Sun (From IBM) by ausoleil · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Dear Mr. Schwartz,
    Apparently you have not read your own literature. I refer you to the web page at

    http://www.sun.com/2004-0803/feature/

    In which you state:

    "3.Aug.04--Customers who want the stability and security of the Solaris Operating System and the flexibility to also use Linux applications won't have to wait much longer. The forthcoming Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) will include a remarkable new feature that allows customers to run Linux applications unchanged on the Solaris OS. By enabling this functionality, code-named Project Janus, administrators can create an environment for running a range of Linux applications at near-native speeds. Sun is offering Project Janus as an optional kernel service of the Solaris OS, enabling administrators to run Linux applications in a new and unique way on x86 platforms. In keeping with Sun's long-standing support of industry standards, Project Janus is designed for compliance with the Linux Standard Base specification.

    Ergo, if your version of *Nix was as compatible as you claim, there is no issue at all.

    Thanks for taking the time to write, and while I have your attention, how are efforts to open Java for improvements by the open source community coming?

    Signed,
    IBM

  6. Re:Abandoned of x86 Sun systems to blame.. by javaxman · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I think they are getting hurt again from the time Sun tried to sell x86 Solaris machines and then abandoned ship without so much as a good bye we're sorry.

    This has seriously pissed off Intel which has since been making trying to beat Sun into hamburger. Maybe some companies have a long memory. Strange as that may seem.

    More than the companies having memories, I'll have to chime in that it's the people who haven't forgotten Sun's failure to support x86. I mean, I'd have given Solaris x86 a moment or two of consideration in 1997, when Linux was less mature and OS X was nowhere to be seen... but now ? Why bother ? What's the advantage, and can Sun be trusted not to drop support again if it thinks it's not making money, especially when it really needs to make money ?

    Solaris x86 needs a real, good, strong selling point. What is it?

    As far as Intel wanting to beat Sun, no, I think they haven't worried about Sun for years, they hardly compete in the same market, really, they have bigger fish to fry, and that fish is called AMD...

    It's IBM that's gunning for Sun's market, and _that_ is a really good reason for Sun to be scared.