Re: [MLUG] Sun Micro to Roll Out New Low-End Linux Servers

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Mike Miller wrote:

> I think we haven't discussed this yet.  As I see it, this means that
> Sun realizes that Solaris will succumb to Linux eventually.  They also
> want to rub this in Microsoft's face.  No matter what the cause, this
> is good news for Linux.

Some points:

[snip]

> Freely available Linux is spreading among corporate users aiming to cut
> costs, although analysts say it cannot yet handle some of the biggest
> tasks and ones that need extreme security. It is usually confined to
> mundane tasks such as Web site management or payroll systems.

Show me a weakly secure payroll system, and I'll show you IT personnel
who drive suspiciously fancy cars. :-)
 
[snip]

> Sun Chief Operating Officer Ed Zander repeatedly batted the perception
> that Solaris would suffer.
> 
> "We want to make sure that the open systems community, the open source
> community, stands united against Microsoft and IBM," he said,

Now, this is the really interesting part, since we all know that IBM has
been the one firm that has tried to out-Sun Sun in recent years.  They've
adopted Linux on a surprising variety of platforms, done a bunch of other
Open Source projects, they have gone totally gung ho for Java (maybe even
more than Sun itself), and they even have the audacity to offer
IBM/{Linux,AIX}/DB2 as an alternative to Sun/Solaris/Oracle.  And IBM's
strategy has been nothing like Microsoft's, actually; "standing united"
against MS and IBM is like "standing united" against beef and broccoli.
The only thing they really have in common is that their business models
both cause some problems for Sun.

And, yes, the article does pick up on this:

> IBM led established technology companies pushing Linux, arguing operating
> systems running individual machines were becoming commodities. IBM saw a
> profit providing services and "middleware" software to glue a network
> together.
> 
> Microsoft, meanwhile, is challenging Solaris and other expensive operating
> systems for the middle ground of less expensive servers.
> 
> For Sun, the clear immediate threat is that Linux products will
> cannibalize its own Solaris servers, but the larger question is whether
> Sun could prosper if it refused to acknowledge Linux.

I would say that this announcement does a lot to insure the future of 
Linux where it probably was already strong, but doesn't have much affect
in other possible niches (i.e., really big servers, the desktop, or the 
notebook).  
 
jking


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