Sun to Give Out Operating System for Free
 

11/15/04 07:31 EST SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - After investing roughly
$500 million and spending years of development time on its
next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will
announce an aggressive price for the software - free.

Sun, which has never completely rebounded from the tech collapse in
2001, hopes the no-cost of Solaris 10 will not only attract customers
but also expand the number of developers who write programs that work
on computers running the operating system.

The result, Sun believes, will be renewed demand for its servers and
services. The company also will charge subscription fees for Solaris
support and service programs that are typically sought by the
businesses and organizations that Sun targets.

"Hewlett Packard sells a printer at a low price and makes a lot of
money on printer cartridges. Gillette gives you the razor and makes a
lot of money on the blades,'' said Scott McNealy, Sun's chief
executive. "There are different ways to drive market penetration.''

Solaris 10 will be unveiled Monday at an event in San Jose, though it
won't be formally released until the end of January. It will work on
more than 270 computer platforms running on chips from Sun, Intel
Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The price of earlier versions of Solaris typically ran between
hundreds and thousands of dollars - depending on the system that was
being run by the software, said Tom Goguen, Sun's vice president of
operating platforms.

Sun also has promised make the underlying code of Solaris available
under an open-source license, though the details have not been
released. With access to the code, Solaris users will be able to take
advantage of its features when developing their own software and
systems.

The move stands in contrast to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows and other
proprietary operating systems in which the blueprints are released
only to select outsiders, if any.

And, depending on the final license, it could make Solaris more
competitive with open-source operating systems like Linux and
distributors such as Red Hat Inc.

"When we open source, the one advantage we thought Red Hat had is
gone. Then we both have an advantage with respect to Microsoft,''
McNealy said.

"(Sun has) a worldwide service and support organization, which we
think is way better than either company in the enterprise.''

Solaris also will run programs written for the Linux operating system
without having to make any changes.

Though Sun also sells lower-end systems that run Linux, it believes
Solaris is a better value proposition. To strengthen its case, Solaris
10 will include security features that in the past were only part of a
trusted version sold strictly to government agencies and the military.

Sun, a star of the late 1990s tech boom, fell on hard times as
corporate spending shrunk and rivals like IBM Corp. and
Hewlett-Packard Co. started offering machines with less expensive
hardware and software.

The Santa Clara-based company has been trying to return to solid
footing for years, and McNealy said Solaris 10 is an important part of
the company's transformation.

"It's kind of the tent pole - it just kind of holds up the whole
deal,'' he said.

Last month, Sun announced its second consecutive quarter of revenue
growth, though profits remain elusive. McNealy believes the company he
co-founded in 1982 has already turned the corner, though the
financials have yet to show it.

"
There's always a lag with companies our size,'' McNealy said. "And
that's assuming we're not making dumb mistakes right now that I don't
know about.''

Re: Sun to Give Out Operating System for Free
 

texan.usenet@texas.removethisbit.com wrote:

> 11/15/04 07:31 EST SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - After investing roughly
> $500 million and spending years of development time on its
> next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will
> announce an aggressive price for the software - free.

I'll have to give a spin..... :-)

--
Distributed Computing Projects:
SETI at Home
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/seti2/stats.php?userID=1248
ClimatePrediction.net
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/cpdn/stats.php?userID=334

Re: Sun to Give Out Operating System for Free
 

my 2c..
Immediate benefits being improvements to TCP/IP stack, and then there's the
longer term promise of better filesystem/volume management (demo looked to
me like veritas features without the obscure commands), the
software-mini-domains on a single machine looked interesting too. Portable
filesystems between sparc and x86.. faster JRE, ipfilters included.. all
good stuff.

however I might be inclined to wait for the first maintenance update.

-david v.


"steve" <steve@nevernowut.org.nz> wrote in message
news:2vtkh8F2ohqt2U1@uni-berlin.de...
> texan.usenet@texas.removethisbit.com wrote:
>
> > 11/15/04 07:31 EST SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - After investing roughly
> > $500 million and spending years of development time on its
> > next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will
> > announce an aggressive price for the software - free.
>
> I'll have to give a spin..... :-)
>
> --
> Distributed Computing Projects:
> SETI at Home
> http://boinc.mundayweb.com/seti2/stats.php?userID=1248
> ClimatePrediction.net
> http://boinc.mundayweb.com/cpdn/stats.php?userID=334


---

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Version: 6.0.795 / Virus Database: 539 - Release Date: 12/11/2004

Re: Sun to Give Out Operating System for Free
 

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:51:29 -0600,
texan.usenet@texas.removethisbit.com wrote:

>11/15/04 07:31 EST SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - After investing roughly
>$500 million and spending years of development time on its
>next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will
>announce an aggressive price for the software - free.
>
If it is like their previous "free" deals you only get the binaries,
not the source. And it is much less complete than a Linux Distro.

Add to which their servers are slower than a dead dog with no legs and
frequently flake out a 100 or so MB into an ISO.

Add to which they did not provide the software on CDs. It HAD to be
downloaded.

If they sell a CD with it on for $10 I might give it a try.

So far as I am aware there's ALWAYS been a free version of Solaris
available.

Cheers,

Cliff
--

These twin-CPU hyperthreading computers are really
great! We can wait ten to a hundred times faster
these days.

Re: Sun to Give Out Operating System for Free
 

In article <dp1jp096s5i7v1repoiiflfenuaa9b5fir@4ax.com>,
texan.usenet@texas.removethisbit.com wrote:

>After investing roughly
>$500 million and spending years of development time on its
>next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will
>announce an aggressive price for the software - free.

End of the line. No more market. Continuing to lose money. Succeeded in
totally cocking up Java. Where to for Sun from here?