Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Softpanorama Search

(Slightly Skeptical)
Solaris Enterprize Strategy Page

Instead of introduction I recommend to read the relevant part (Sun under the Linux siege ) of the chapter 4 of the Open source Pioneers book that discusses the Solaris relationship with Linux (and thus IBM) that was the counterpoint of the last five years or so.

Currently the key issue for Sun is the level of interoperability with Microsoft.  The key to this is their 2004 agreement:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 2, 2004 — Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced that they have entered into a broad technology collaboration arrangement to enable their products to work better together and to settle all pending litigation between the two companies. The companies have also entered into agreements on patents and other issues.

Unless Sun brass take serious steps in this direction, their competitive position is pretty slippery.  Of course low power consumption of T1 and good transactional benchmarks result is an additional plus.

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

Old News ;-)

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, just dropped me off at the lobby of building 10. So, I'm sitting on the floor near a power outlet and am blogging my experiences.

What an enjoyable guy! We walked across the street to a Togos sandwich shop. Little-known trivia, Togos was started by a couple of San Jose State University students. I have lots of great memories of eating in Togos over the years (there was one across the street from our high school — I graduated in 1983).

Anyway, at one point we were having such an engaged conversation I had to remind myself that he runs a company with 37,000 employees and billions in revenues. We instantly were talking like long-lost friends.

There was a serious tone to our lunch, though, we talked a lot about the business difficulties facing Sun Microsystems. They are about to layoff thousands of people.

One thing I look for in leaders, though, is willingness to take the worst of times in stride with a clear eye on what comes next. Jonathan exceeded all my ideas of what a leader should do. And he has great pride in Sun, too, and says that the business is starting to turn around.

For one, Sun is going to encourage all the laid off workers to continue to blog — on Sun's dime. Now, I can imagine the kind of vitriol and crud that'll get posted by workers who've just lost their jobs. That takes real corporate bravery and my hat is off to him. One good thing about this? It'll make it possible for new employers to get in touch with laid off workers. There's a lot of companies that are hungry for workers right now.

At one point I asked him about the Business Week cover I saw (Marissa Mayer at Google was staring at both of us, being crowned by BusinessWeek as queen of innovators) and said "what innovations is Sun doing?" Later I asked him if there's something that Sun and Microsoft could innovate together on?

He told me about some of the innovations that Sun has been working on in the past few years. He's in the midst of a large-scale corporate upheaval and rebuilding.

One of the things he's proudest of is Sun's engineers found a way to dramatically lower the power consumption of their servers. How did they do that? By getting rid of things that Web servers don't need — and by slowing down the chip which didn't hurt Web performance, since most of what Web sites need is high throughput, not high turnaround time (he told me that I really care if 1,000 people can all download my blog at the same time, not that any one of those getting it a microsecond faster). He told me that they found that customers of the size of Ebay weren't using much floating point performance on its datacenters. So they removed that functionality, and other stuff. That saves power. Good for the environment, good for his customer's bottom lines, and good for Sun too.

He's deeply concerned about the amount of power that Internet sites are using. He says that for many Internet companies it's already one of their top three costs. Reduce power and heat on servers and you can save companies like Google or Ebay or, even, WordPress, a lot of money.

How could Microsoft and Sun innovate together? That's a tough one cause our businesses are aimed at different places at the moment, but we brainstormed a few places and I'm sure we'll get something going offline. The fact that we were even talking about working together demonstrates that it's a new world and that the only constant in the business world is change.

He's most passionate about the growth of content around the world. Talked about how a friend of his showed him the popularity of Indian Cricket games world-wide, something that hasn't caught on here in Silicon Valley, but has up to a billion people interested around the world. That kind of content will be delivered over the Internet, which means more business opportunities for Sun. He sees the effect that blogs, Wikis, MySpace, podcasting, and video and videoblogging are having on the growth of the Internet too and is looking for ways that Sun could help those networks grow and thrive.

Why invite me over for lunch? Cause he is seeing the deep effect that blogging is having on his company (it's helping recruitment at Sun too, even in the face of layoffs) and wanted to meet me and get to know me a little better. That's very flattering, but I too was trying to learn something about Sun that hadn't been reported already.

One thing I found out? That he's a staunch proponent of working at home. At Sun they found that people who work at home are far less likely to leave Sun than employees that have to come into the office. He sees that as a competitive advantage and doesn't understand why some companies force their employees to come into the office.

He also went into great detail with me about why Sun is in the position of having to lay people off. I found that to be fascinating behavior on the behalf of a CEO meeting with an employee of one of his fiercest competitors. He's bummed out by having to lay people off which seems trite to say when you talk about a CEO that isn't seeing his own job threatened, but he told me he grew up in a poor family and wants to put Sun into a position so it can hire back all those workers.

He won me over. I've met a few CEOs over the years and a lot of them just want to tell me their point of view. Jonathan was noticeably different: he asked ME questions about how I looked at the world. He was curious, personable, someone I could see drinking a lot of beer with and still remaining friends with. And that's my point of view from the floor of Sun Microsystems' corporate headquarters.

Next time Jonathan, you gotta come up to Microsoft and I'll buy lunch and let's take the relationship further.

[June 02, 2006 ] Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog/Sunlight is the Best Informant

I was with a big potential customer yesterday - in the Fortune 100. After a day of briefings from our technical folks, I joined the meeting to see how we were doing. I asked him and his team how much of what they'd seen was new to them.

He said, "about 70% was a complete surprise."

Ouch. That's not good.

To test, I asked, "before today, did you know that Solaris was open source, or ran on Dell, HP and IBM hardware, not just Sun's?" "Nope."

And like I said, this was a Fortune 100 opportunity.

Despite the ample advice I receive, getting through the din, especially in the world of IT, doesn't happen with a superbowl ad (can you remember a single one?), or buying every billboard in every town, or every ad word on-line. We know, we measure their effectiveness.

We know the most valued information travels by word of mouth. Through blogs, on-line reviews, or other on-line conversations. Or "kneecap to kneecap," as we sit across the table from customers in our briefing centers. And frankly, the most valuable information about Sun doesn't come from Sun, it comes from other customers.

So how do you get the word out if you don't have a $500M ad budget? To me, it's not so much about getting the word out, as letting the eyes and ears in. You can tell I'm a big fan of transparency - that's why I write a blog (with comments on, and yes, I read every one, as do a host of others at Sun). It's why I encourage others to drive the conversation in the market, as well. Transparency's at least a part of the solution. If not an outright competitive weapon.

A very wise man once said, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" - and in my view, exposing our internals to the outside world also helps us respond to problems more rapidly. True, we have to expose the occasional unhappy customer (I hear this one, in particular, recently became happy), but we expose them to people who can help, too - from within Sun, or within the community. We can't solve problems we don't know about. Like the good justice said, sunlight's a good disinfectant.

Which is why you'll see something very interesting next week start to appear on Sun's web pages and throughout our on-line store. You'll start to see product reviews written by users. You'll see user defined ratings, right on our products. Just like book or product reviews at Amazon. We're starting with just a few products, but it'll ultimately extend all the way up to our highest end enterprise offerings.

What's the risk? That we're exposing ourselves to criticism? That we may have on display the fact that one product or another isn't perfect? (That our competitors may try to rate all our products?)

Nope.

The far bigger risk is that we'd meet another customer surprised by what we had to offer. Unaware that our systems were 5 times as energy efficient as our competitors. That Solaris was free, open source, and available on Dell or HP. Or that Thumper was about to reset the economics of the storage industry.

And to my mind, sunlight's not just the best disinfectant.

It's the best informant, too.

From a voice you'll trust more than ours - your own.

[May 4, 2006] InformationWeek Weblog Sun's R&D Chief Gets Out His Magnifying Glass

Scott McNealy's decision to cede his Sun Microsystems CEO title to his protégée, Jonathan Schwartz, last week after 22 years at the helm has grabbed most of the computer industry's interest around the storied company. When pressed on how his tenure would differ from McNealy's, Schwartz downplayed any shift in strategy. "The network is the computer," then and now, he said on a conference call with reporters.

But an overlooked artifact of the CEO switch is Schwartz's order for a top-to-bottom engineering review of Sun's technology projects over the next three months, headed by Greg Papadopoulos, who took on the new title of executive VP of research and development at Sun last week. When I talked to Papadopoulos late last week, he said no Sun engineer will escape his scrutiny. Could there be more changes in the offing than appeared at first glance?
 

Sun made its change at the top after losing $217 million during its third quarter ended March 26, though revenues increased 21% to $3.2 billion, largely on sales of storage and x86 servers. According to Schwartz, Sun's big brands--Sparc, Solaris, Java, and Sun Fire servers running Advanced Micro Devices chips--"have yet to really bear fruit and deliver the value they ultimately can." It's Papadopoulos' job to unlock that value.

Sun spends about $2 billion annually on research and development, pouring a greater percentage of revenue into R&D (16.5% in Q3) than many of its competitors. But the budget needs some fixing, shifting funds from engineering projects that emphasize the performance of single computers running alone to technology that can boost the performance of a whole network of systems--increasingly the way IT managers run their business apps. "As we go through and look at the R&D, we say, 'Is this old school or new school?' " says Papadopoulos. "You can't do that informally." Designing systems meant to operate in clusters and elevating the importance of software delivered as a Web service rather than shipped in a box are part of the plan. The ability to do so will define "what it really means to be a computer company" in the next few years, he says.

There are signs Sun is on the right track. The company recently delivered its new UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" processor, which gains performance through packaging hardware on a single chip that can run 32 simultaneous application threads, each in its own Java virtual machine. Those could be search engine requests, Oracle transactions, or other popular workloads. And Niagara chips run on about the same amount of electricity as a household light bulb--cooler than Intel or AMD parts in tests. Sun has been trying to sell T1-based servers to Google, and though no deal has been reached yet, "there's no doubt this stuff is meshed well with the stuff they run," Papadopoulos says. Sun also just "taped out" Niagara 2, or sent its final design in for manufacturing. That chip could ship some time next year.

Earlier this week, Sun said it would deliver a 128-bit file system for Solaris in June, creating a computing runway for the next 10 years.

Sparc and Solaris are still vibrant brands, and Sun's Sparc business actually grew during Q3, according to Papadopoulos. "This stuff has differentiated value in the market," he says. Still, customers aren't buying in the numbers they once were--Sun's share of the $51.7 billion worldwide server market last year slipped again to less than 10%, its fifth straight year of decline, according to market research company Gartner.

To get Sun's R&D more in line with customers' desires, Papadopoulos figures he'll review some 500 projects under way at Sun. "There are 9,000 engineers at the company, and you get asked the question, 'What are they all doing?' " he says. Along the way, he'll identify opportunities for cuts. As for whether projects get axed or management uses a lighter hand to redistribute funding among projects, "that's Jonathan's call," says Papadopoulos.

Schwartz's public stance so far has been to execute on the plans he and McNealy have already put in place. But look a little closer and it appears Sun is actually tinkering with its formula to try to cure what ails it.

[Apr 26, 2006] Will Schwartz add more Windows to Sun

Perhaps the changing of the guard at Sun Microsystems Inc. was no shock to some. Now pundits can dish over whether or not it will be the start of a new era at Sun – and one that might mean more collaboration with Microsoft.

The company said earlier this week that CEO Scott McNealy was stepping aside so chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz could take the reigns. Not everyone thinks the new CEO will bring big changes. Gordon Haff, a senior analyst at Illuminata Inc., Nashua, N.H., said he doubted the change was much more than Schwartz taking over a role he had already started and fine tuned even while McNealy was in control.

Major moves, including the adoption of x86 architecture, the move to AMD's Opteron processor on low-end hardware and the open sourcing of the Solaris operating system, all bore the mark of Schwartz, Haff said.

And more importantly Schwartz's background, based in software, is one that could see some interesting collaboration in the future -- mainly with Microsoft. Relations between Sun and Microsoft have improved in the past few years -- the "sword has been sheathed," Haff said – and have included healthy doses of interoperability work between the two companies.

The interoperability reflects what the end users have been demanding, said Tony Iams, a senior analyst with Rye Brook, N.Y.-based IDEAS International Inc., and now the idea of pre-installing Windows Server onto Sun boxes is not unthinkable.

"Now that Sun is with x86, to realistically compete in that market you have to have some level of support for Windows," Iams said. "If Apple [Computer] can come in and support Windows, then it makes even more sense for Sun to do so too."

Broad support for Windows would also help Sun stem the flow of lost customers who have defected from Solaris to Linux thanks to free migration programs offered by IBM and Hewlett Packard, said Charles King, founder of Hayward, Calif.-based Pund-IT Research.

However, King said that Sun has made inroads with x86 in the interim with an aggressive campaign to present its Galaxy servers, based on AMD's Opteron processor. And while not as pronounced as the gains in the hardware business, Sun has also seen up ticks in popularity with ISVs thanks to its efforts into open source software.

"Typically systems vendors like Sun don't make a huge amount of money selling open source software, but they do manage to make a healthy profit through alliances with the ISVs and by selling ancillary products to support the open source ISV applications," King said.

As for Java, the pundits said they believed Sun will continue to be careful about retaining control and managing Java for the time being. Schwartz has publicly said he has considered options regarding Java, but to date the company has been reluctant to open source the technology.  

ScienceDirect - Business Horizons, Volume 49, Issue 1, Pages 1-86 (January-February 2006)

A personal view of Sun Microsystems  • DISCUSSION
Pages 17-20
John C. Shoemaker
SummaryPlus | Full Text + Links | PDF (72 K)

Slashdot Alternatives to Citrix Remote Computing Sun sold Tarantella to ProPalms.

Sun's x86 strategist steers straight ahead Newsmakers CNET News.com

Jonathan Schwartz Solaris is the Future of Unix - OSNews.com

Jonathan reminded us that the Test-Drive version of Solaris is available today for everyone to download and try out. The final version of Solaris (commercial release) will be in January and that would be the time that the source will be completely opened as well. He would like to see Solaris scale from small embedded machines (submarines, hospitals) to big mainframes.

Jonathan does not believe that the OpenSolaris will have an impact on BSD's or Linux's growth. He doesn't see these platforms as competitors per se, in terms of growth, but he believes that all these platforms will equally evolve in the future in their own ways, because there is no hammer that fits all nails. Some needs require highly scalable systems, other more secure, other more latency-friendly etc.

Instead, the two companies that he sees as definite competitors are Red Hat and mostly, Microsoft. But he is confident that OpenSolaris will help the Solaris platform in general to keep its robustness and good name in the Enterprise. In fact, he maintains that Solaris has better scalability, affordability and security than any Microsoft OS product currently, plus it runs Java --which is truly cross platform-- delivering services that .NET would be able to deliver only on Microsoft products. Points like these make the Sun platform very valuable.

And speaking of the competition, he mentioned that Apple's focus is not the Enterprise at large and therefore, not a competitor: "That's not Steve's focus". Jonathan has several Macs to his home and his family owns some more too. We should not forget where Jonathan comes from, either: the NeXTSTEP community, right before Sun purchased his software company. Jonathan likes Mac OS X a lot and he believes that Apple should continue to innovate in its field and continue create "beautiful and elegant products".

Jonathan says that the main focus of Solaris in terms of the architecture it runs on will continue to be primarily SPARC, accompanied by 32bit and 64bit x86. He invites the open source community to port Solaris to other architectures too, but he doesn't see much commercial value in doing so. For example, he believes that the Itanium is not a durable architecture, while IBM's Power5 is so proprietary that it doesn't make it a good candidate for a port/business. Instead, he welcomes companies to use Solaris on purpose-built embedded system devices.

We asked about his thoughts on Red Hat re-implementing the Java platform from scratch and the implications that would have for Sun. He believes that there is no danger of Red Hat going very far within the Enterprise with this new project because of several reasons, including the fact that it would be a "tough sell" for established customers of the Java platform including Samsung, Nokia and Google. In fact, he fears that IBM is the one that would have the most trouble from the whole Red Hat-Java deal, because as they use Red Hat for their POWER projects, using a non-certified Java version could create potential runtime problems.

The obvious question, then, was why Sun doesn't "Free up" their version of Java, and the answer is that Java is already "open," but not under a more liberal license because Sun doesn't want to open up the potential for a fork. The same fear is not present in the OpenSolaris situation because Solaris is more closely defined and controlled by Sun, while Java can be shaped by external forces easier, and so Sun doesn't want to take that risk. With over 2 billion devices worldwide running Java Sun is 100% committed to ensuring that anything 'stamped' Java is compatible. Folks really depend on that assurance.

Sun does seem to have a beef with Red Hat; that much was obvious from our conversation. Jonathan believes that Red Hat's ways in the business are not fully honest. He believes that Red Hat locks Enterprise customers in, just like Microsoft does, by steadily moving away from the LSB, by patching and forking code (including using a very non-standard Linux kernel) and so applications get certified or only work in the Red Hat codebase and no other Linux distro. Such an example is Oracle, where they do not support any Linux distro other than Red Hat-based ones. Jonathan believes that Red Hat, by differentiating the code so much, has created its own incompatible platform, and is therefore virtually pushing customers to continue use Red Hat instead of Debian or Gentoo or other.

We asked Jonathan about his opinion on patents and he summarized it thus: Patents are useful, but most of them are "silly" and unfairly approved (in the US). In its official position, Sun respects Intellectual Property, and as such they will offer indemnification to all new versions of Solaris.

Lastly, we asked Jonathan about his opinion on the future of Unix and he sees a "vibrant and dynamic" future for all "branches and leaves of the same tree", including BSD and Linux ("which comes from the same swamp") but most importantly --surprise, surprise-- Solaris. He looks forward to a strong community build to help out with the development of this high-integrity, robust and promising platform.

Linux News Commentary The Importance of Solaris 10

The newly released Solaris 10 includes a radical new technology called DTrace which lets you look inside the usual black box of a running production application to see exactly where the bottlenecks are and what their impact is. As a result, I've been telling clients with big Solaris operations that they should dedicate a machine with at least two US3 or later CPUs to Solaris 10 and use it to train their people on Solaris 10 and DTrace by having them test all major systems.

It's easy to explain the value of stuff like that to management. For the IT people, you just talk about combining hardware and licensing dollar savings with increased deployment flexibility -- and for senior management you correlate software quality with reductions in error and failure risks. Either way, you're really talking about software which enables operational improvements within Sun's existing customer base, and that, I'm sure, is why Sun is energetically marketing these new capabilities.

Look a bit deeper, however, and there's so much more in Solaris 10 that the release should eventually become known as SunOS 3.0. (Note: SunOS 1.0 went to release 4.1.4 with its successor, Solaris, initially known as SunOS 5.0 and then relabeled as Solaris 2. Despite marketing's best efforts, therefore, releases up to 2.8 were publicly known as 2.X ,with 8 and 9 still known internally as 2.8 and 2.9, respectively.)

Deeper Innovations

Hot, new intrinsic capabilities like DTrace, ZFS and the ability to run Linux binaries are the realizations of deeper technological innovations like microstate accounting. Solaris 10 brings a lot of those out of the labs and into production environments where they'll receive the kind of intensive real world testing that will ultimately determine how important they are. Consider, for example, this list of Solaris 10 top 11-20 new features put together by Adam Leventhal (one of the key developers behind DTrace):

1. libumem -- the tool for debugging dynamic allocation problems; oh, and it scales as well or better than any other memory allocator.
2. pfiles(1) with file names -- you can get at the file name info through /proc, too; very cool.
3. Improved coreadm(1M) -- core files are now actually useful on other machines, administrators and users can specify the content of core files.
4. System V IPC -- no more clumsy system tunables and reboots, it's all dynamic, and -- guess what? -- faster too.
5. kmdb -- if you don't care, OK, but if you do care, you really, really care: mdb(1)'s cousin replaces kadb(1M).
6. Watchpoints -- now they work and they scale.
7. pstack(1) for java -- see java stack frames in a JVM or core file and through Dtrace.
8. pmap(1) features -- see thread stacks, and core file content.
9. per-thread p-tools -- apply pstack(1) and truss(1) to just the threads you care about.
10. Event Ports -- a generic API for dealing with heterogeneous event sources.

Things like these are invisible to IT management and of little importance to the press, but this is the stuff on which technology revolutions like DTrace and ZFS are built. Thus, their presence in this release signals the importance of Solaris 10, not as an end product but as a work in progress.

Systemwide Functionality

To me it seems that Sun is driving toward what I think of as Plan-9 compliance; not at the code level but in terms of systemwide functionality. Plan 9, you might recall, is a kind of second generation Unix liberated from the single machine focus of the original design to make full use of multiple machines on a network. Originally, Sun's marketing people said that "the network is the computer"; realistically, Plan 9 reverses that to make it: "the computer is the network" -- and that's exactly what's going on with Solaris.

Adam Leventhal's list, above, reflects the achievements of people working to put in place the foundations for future software, while the forthcoming Niagara and later SPARC designs do the same thing at the hardware level -- putting the equivalent of a traditional 32-way SMP box into a single processor.

Bring them together in production systems and what do you get? The ability to organize your business  around a single physical computer redundantly implemented in processors spread across your network -- meaning that a lot of business processes now limited by technology costs and software complexity can be simplified right down to affordability. That's what Solaris 10 is really about, and the 10-year impact is likely to be like nothing we've seen before.

LXer Sun versus Linux The Real Story

by Tom Adelstein
November 22, 2004

On December 01, 1999, 32bitsonline.com published an article in which I chronicled the emergence of Windows NT from a small five percent share of the server market to approximately 50 percent. During the period, Novell fell from around an 80 percent share of the PC nodes to around ten percent. With Novell flattened, Microsoft started to go after UNIX until interrupted by Federal Anti-Trust actions over the Netscape Browser.

The article called "Did Microsoft Try to Kill UNIX?" no longer exists and neither do the many links that documented Microsoft's famous ascent in the server space. Evidence of the article's existence still remains at this link. You will notice this remnant:

"Microsoft claims that the United States Justice Department has interfered with innovation in the computer industry. One can't help but wonder what people would call the collective effort of the developers who created Linux."

 

In December 1999, Microsoft Windows held a 41 percent share of the server OS market globally up from 38 percent in 1998. Surprisingly, Linux had showed a 27 percent share of new server shipments that year while NetWare held 17 and UNIX 14 percent as reported by market researcher IDC.

But go back to 1995 and you'll discover that Novell had a 65.6 percent market share while Microsoft had approximately 6 percent and OS/2 held steady at around 15 percent according to periodicals from the time. During that period, Sun Microsystems held a 40 percent share of the RISC UNIX workstation market. Go back a little further and Novell NetWare and UNIX owned the entire server market give or a take a few percent.

What happened to Novell? In almost missing the Internet, Microsoft scrambled. In fact, Bill Gates saw what Sun Microsystems had done and jumped through hoops to get into the game. Novell missed the Internet entirely until hiring Sun's Internet architect Eric Schmidt in 1997. It was just a little too late and still took Novell time to gear up and once it had, Schmidt went to work at Google. Many people who worked in the industry ten years ago remember how the Internet saved Sun Microsystems and caused her to hold the most prominent place in the server operating system market.

Along Comes GNU/Linux

During the Federal prosecution of Microsoft, which began in October 1997 and ended in November 2001, Linux rose to prominence. Microsoft needed a competitor. But the young upstart Linux didn't even have an officially supported graphical Internet browser at the time. As Microsoft came to realize the serious intent of the Department of Justice and Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, Redmond began to act a little more convinced of the prowess of Linux. A few nudges in the press and a few attacks on Linux and soon others began to look into the seriousness of Linux.

Once, Microsoft escaped the threat of a corporate breakup, Linux had gone from a user base of two to approximately twenty million. In addition, Linux became a favorite of IBM, HP and thousands of value added resellers.

As Microsoft shook off its anti-trust haze and looked around, it began to focus its attention on growing its server business once again. NetWare posed no threat and IBM had agreed to stop marketing OS/2. But, IBM embraced Linux and began taking market share from wherever it could. Microsoft had a formidable adversary in the server space in IBM.

Through Linux, IBM made refugees of the Santa Cruz Project, HP's UNIX and to a certain extent Microsoft's NT. IBM also trained its eyes on long time nemesis Sun Microsystems and actively undercut Sun's hardware and software prices. Then something happened that makes little sense: IBM turned from its attack on Microsoft and focused entirely on Sun Microsystems. IBM sent its entire Linux team to Siberia, dropped its plans for a Linux desktop and became obsessed with Sun. This served Microsoft well. IBM would continue to compete with Microsoft but not to the extent that it wanted to endanger Sun and perhaps turn them into the Data General of the early twenty first century.

Enter SCO

Through SCO, Microsoft succeeded in transferring the angst of the open-source community from itself to other entities primarily the SCO Group and Sun Microsystems.

The SCO phenomenon doesn't make sense when you attempt to connect the dots. Microsoft could not have asked for a better situation in which to display its agility at manipulating perception.

C/NET reported on the Sun transaction in June 2003. Explaining the situation, C/NET wrote:

 

SCO's Unix licensing plan got a major boost of publicity in May when Microsoft announced its decision to license Unix from SCO, but Sun actually was the first company to sign on. SCO and Sun confirmed the licensing deal on Wednesday.

The pact, signed earlier this year, expanded the rights Sun acquired in 1994 to use Unix in its Solaris operating system...Sun's expanded license permits Sun to use some software from Unix System V Release 4 for software components called drivers, which let computers use hard drives, network cards and other devices. Sun needed the software for its version of Solaris that runs on Intel servers, Sun spokesman Brett Smith said. A source familiar with the deal said the new contract was signed in February, but neither Sun nor SCO would comment.

Microsoft could not have asked for better timing. Seizing the opportunity to seed SCO in its efforts to disrupt Linux, they bundled another enemy into the fray: Sun Microsystems. Then, to shift the attention away from themselves further, Microsoft cleverly paid Sun money for the damages owed in court losses by hosting a "love-in" between the Sun and Microsoft CEO's. Microsoft then announced a licensing deal where Sun would receive intellectual property it could use to connect to Microsoft servers.

Suddenly, Sun became the target of open-source angst. Microsoft used a clever psychological trick to transfer the hatred of technologists from themselves to others. In the eyes of the media and others, Microsoft and Sun became sudden partners against Linux.

And just to show how good a partner they really have become, the same Microsoft has made a major effort to undermine the Linux wins Sun made in China. How? By trying to scare the Chinese with threats of patent infringement.

Sun Plays Checkers, Microsoft Plays Chess

I don't wish to disparage Sun, but their press relations need as much of an overhaul as their product line. Known internally as fascists, they could have served as campaign advisers to any flip-flopping politician one might choose. Here's Sun management opening themselves to the community with a blogsphere and yet no one inside the company can talk to the press, write an article or issue a press release without the guiding hand of the Sun media relations. What's the difference between that and saying I don't own a SUV but my family does? Or, saying I voted for the Bill before I voted against it?

Sun began work on its Linux Desktop in September 2002. It opened sourced its Cobalt software, provides the major support for Gnome, purchased StarOffice and gave the code to the community, supports Mozilla and pays a ridiculous sum for open-source projects at Collab.net. Now, people see them as the enemy. Let's just say that Sun's media relations team has done a wonderful job of confusing the public, making the company seem like an enemy of open-source, stressing proprietary software and embarrassing management. Way to go.

Is Sun against Linux?

In September, O'Reilly and Associates published a book written by Sam Hiser and me called "Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop". In actually, it could have taken the name "Exploring the Linux Desktop" or "Exploring Linux with JDS". We settled on the Sun distribution of the Linux desktop because it provided the best migration and management tools for Microsoft users. Also, Sun provided us with support, which we couldn't get from other distributions of Linux. Let's say Sun cooperated with us.

All parties involved in the book needed convincing that Sun had a long-term and proper commitment to Linux. We did extensive due diligence and came away feeling we made the right choice. Writing and publishing the book required a major commitment on our part and O'Reilly's. The technical book market requires more precision today than ever. You cannot just throw a book out there and expect it to sell. So, we felt comfortable with the Sun Linux team.

Note: The "A" players in the Linux business all had a chance to have their own distribution in the name of the book. Some even had an inside advantage. At decision time, JDS prevailed. As someone who put eight months into the project and helped form a community support web site, Sun's floundering around on the PR front has disappointed me, personally and professionally.

Recently, I saw a glimmer of light with regard to Sun regaining its deserved community standing. In Jonathan's Blog, he explained the company's commitment to Linux:

Our desktop efforts, and linux product strategy, are well ahead of the cynics in the industry - and are helping us make progress on the globe's ambitions for a truly cheap PC. We've tried working with a few of the larger PC OEMs, but they, unlike WalMart, aren't all that interested in lowering prices in the PC industry. They're trying to maintain margins, not make PCs more affordable. Bridge the digital divide? I doubt that's on Dell's list of strategic priorities. Hear this: it is certainly on ours. It's even good for our business.

And before more of the conspiracy theories show up, let me quash (or start) a few of them.

In addition to JDS/linux, yes, we are committed to JDS/Solaris. An open source Solaris, with its security and virtualization infrastructure, is a perfect match for JDS. And as Red Hat's rhetoric continues to alienate customers and the open source community, we're finding a welcome audience for bringing an open source Solaris 10 to new markets. Competition is a good thing for the open source movement. Those who truly believe in open source welcome competition - those hiding behind marketing veneer and vendor lock-in hate it.

Should UNIX Go?

Left with the choice between only Microsoft and Linux, I cannot get comfortable. Microsoft looks like they may have gross revenues of $36 billion. Novell projects around $1 billion and Red Hat around $125 million. With Sun in the mix, you have an $11 Billion player.

I don't see much complaining from the open-source community about IBM selling a mix of operating systems including OS400, which you need to run Linux on their iSeries (AS400) platform. They continue to sell AIX and no one complains.

HP and SGI, other major Linux OEM's, sell UNIX and Microsoft and you don't see any flames against them. Contrary to Jonathan's claims, HP denies they have discontinued their version of UNIX. Given the chance to sell HP-UX or IRIX, neither company will say no.

Another argument that favors keeping UNIX involves the installed base. UNIX has a massive base of users in health care, government, the military, education, manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services. Linux cannot replace UNIX entirely. As the director of distributed computing at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Joseph Panfil related in this issue of ComputerWorld:

A key issue with the Merc's use of Linux is support. With Sun, Panfil says, the Merc deals with a mature and responsive support organization that will immediately fly out a kernel expert if needed. But he says he thinks the Merc's Linux vendor, Red Hat Inc., needs to improve its support. Currently, he says, Red Hat emphasizes purchasing more products as a way to fix problems. "When there are issues, they need to step up better," Panfil says.

Michael Tiemann, Red Hat's vice president of open-source affairs, says he understands Panfil's concerns; he acknowledges that his company is still learning and says it is making changes.

Tiemann says that Red Hat's goal is to sell products upfront and that the important thing is that when the Merc had problems, they were solved. "Ultimately, Red Hat was able to dig into its technical knowledge and expertise ... and help that customer get to the place that they wanted," he says.

Ultimately, Red Hat may become a larger player in the market. Today, it just doesn't have the bandwidth to compete with extant companies. If you start looking around at the existing players they all have signficant ties to Microsoft with the exception of Sun. And while Microsoft has helped create the perception that Sun is a partner, the guys in the bullpen haven't bought it. In fact, of the major players only Sun is a UNIX company first and foremost. They don't depend on Microsoft for their air supply like IBM, HP, Dell and others.

Final Thoughts

Some people may find it difficult to understand that in baseball, I'm a Yankees fan. Living in Dallas that may not make much sense. I learned some time ago that George Steinbrenner doesn't hit, catch or throw. He even has made many enemies along his career path as the Yankee's skipper. He does find and pay for the talent. I don't have to like him to like his players.

Using the analogy of the Yankees, I tend to look at the team and not the executives. I personally like the Sun Linux team and the people working on OpenSolaris. I like it that they're making Grub the bootloader for Solaris 10 and enabling Linux apps for their main stream customers. Those items work for me. Spelling Linux with a small "l" doesn't. In fact, I would consider it a personal favor if the blogger that does that starting acknowledging the community that disrupted Microsoft's technological dominance. Scare 'em all, I say!

[Nov 19, 2004] Sun will shine again and leave Linux in its shade Not many open source aficionados will realize the impact, but by making Solaris 10 free and capable of operating on any kind of hardware, Sun is making a coup in the server market.

Let me start by saying that I’m not a technical expert. Although this might be a handicap it could very well be a positive in looking at the issue of Sun versus Linux in the server business from a decision maker's point of view.

Until today, the discussion around Linux pushed by Red Hat and recently by Novell after it took over Suse has been around the risks and opportunitites of the open source model versus the costs and slow adaptation of the proprietary model.

Opponents of open source software always argued that due to its nature there is a risk that version control, compatibility, future development and support is not guaranteed and could leave companies who use it at some point with a free but outdated system that is difficult to maintain.

Companies like Red Hat and Novell and on occasion other big players have tried to take away these arguments by committing to the open source model and vowed to make it work. Despite their efforts and some success, there still is a lot of skepticism within corporate IT departments and as a result Linux is not taking the market by storm.

With the decision by Sun to give away their latest version of their software, Solaris 10 for free all of these concerns have evaporated in one blow in favor of the now open source and compatible Solaris 10 supported by Sun.

Looking at the advantage of going the Sun route versus the Linux route it is hard to see why any IT executive would chose to switch to Linux.

• The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.
• By making it work with competing hardware platforms, there is no reason anymore to switch software to facilitate lower hardware costs.
• Sun with Solaris has already a large installed base and by becoming free and open source there is no reason for existing Solaris users to switch to Linux.
•  Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.
• Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.
• Again as a non technical person, the decision for me would be simple, I would go with Solaris unless I was already using Linux; Why take risks when I can choose a proven, high quality solution at comparable costs?

As a result Linux will probably not grow much beyond its current market share of about 10 % leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem

Of course I might very well be overlooking something here, if so, please let me and other readers know by posting your opinion in a reaction (see below).

Sun CEO takes a swing at, well, everything

McNealy, visiting customers and the press in Toronto on Nov. 5, bristled at the suggestion that Sun was pressured into making its latest version of the Solaris operating system (OS) available to open source developers.

“Pressure? It fascinates me how people think the world operates, that I’m some sort of politician running for office. There are absolute legal issues,” McNealy said, pointing out that Sun had to rid the OS of some proprietary code before open sourcing it.

On Nov. 15 Sun plans to unveil Solaris 10, the first example of the OS to be available on an open-source basis. It features technology called Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), a way for administrators to tweak the platform for maximum performance. Solaris 10 also sports “containers” that isolate applications for further performance improvement, and a new TCP/IP stack that Sun says provides efficient communication processing.

McNealy said Solaris 10 is merely the latest in a long line of Sun contributions to the open source crowd.

“We’re the number-one donator of code to the open source community on the planet,” McNealy said. “To say that we need to be pressured — we invented open source, gang. That’s a little Al Gore-ish. The number one donator of open source code is (University of California) Berkeley. Know where all that came from? (Former Sun chief scientist) Bill Joy, who invented open source while at Berkeley with the BSD licence. We were the Red Hat of Berkeley Unix before Linus Torvalds was out of diapers.”

McNealy took IBM Corp. to task for high OS operating costs. He said Sun could offer Solaris 10 at a price of US$1 per CPU, per hour — customers would pay just a greenback for 60 minutes of access to the platform.

“IBM has…300,000 employees and they’re hiring more,” McNealy said, explaining why he thinks Big Blue can’t match Sun’s metric. “Where’s their dollar per CPU-hour? They can’t do it, because they’re at more than a dollar per CPU-hour just in pension costs.”

McNealy said Sun would offer Solaris containers in an application service provider (ASP) model, whereby the company serves up the OS packages via a data centre, and enterprises would access the containers online.

The data centre is an “N1” environment. N1 is Sun’s server load-balancing and virtualization model that aims to improve server utilization rates. Industry analysts have said most servers operate at just 15 per cent of their capacity. Servers in an N1 environment can at 80 per cent, according to Sun.

Sun’s goal is to become less of a front-line tech provider and more of a background operator, McNealy said, likening his firm’s future to the way certain other gear makers do business. “Nobody chooses Lucent or Nortel or Alcatel as your switch environment. You just sign up. You don’t know what’s on the back end.”

Sun has faced problems recently. In April the company recorded a US$760 million loss for Q3 2004. The company laid off 3,500 employees. Sun ousted Neil Knox, the executive vice-president of low-end servers, Clark Masters, executive vice-president of high-end servers, and Mark Tolliver, chief strategy and marketing officer.

Things got better in the fourth quarter as Sun landed US$795 million in the black, but in October the company recorded a US$174 million loss for Q1 2005.

McNealy put a positive spin on the most recent numbers, pointing out that Sun has US$7.4 billion in the bank, and Q1 would have been profitable if not for unusual charges, such as a US$92 million cheque written to Eastman Kodak Co. to settle a court case.

McNealy said the ASP Solaris model is temporary, merely a way to “irritate the market” in the hopes of convincing service providers like Bell Canada and Telus Corp. to create their own N1 data centres and serve up Solaris containers. So far not one Canadian service provider has signed on.

[Nov 8, 2004] Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One

• For organizations supporting between 1- 400 users
• Databases up to 500 Gb of Data
• Either $149 per Named User (minimum of 5 Users)
• Or $4995 per CPU (Maximum of two CPUs) for unlimited use
• Fast Installation and Configuration, with Built-in Automated Management
• Suitable for all types of Data, and all Applications
• Basic replication capabilities for Branch Office environments.
• The performance, availability, security and reliability you've come to expect from Oracle
• Fully upgradeable to Oracle Database 10g Standard and Enterprise Editions

[Nov 8, 2004] Open-Source Path Not an Option for Oracle, Exec Says - Computerworld

[Nov 4, 2004] Stone Rolls Away From Novell By Michael Singer   Chris Stone, who was instrumental in Novell's acquisition of SUSE Linux, has left for other pursuits, the company said Thursday. No successor has been named.

Stone served as Vice Chairman of the Office of the CEO and was one of the most visible figures in the Provo, Utah-based company's forays into open source. Stone had been responsible for engineering, product management and alliances, the company said. One of his last projects was getting Novell (Quote, Chart) to join the IBM-backed Eclipse Project.

"It is with some regret that I have decided to leave Novell and pursue other professional opportunities," Stone said in a statement. "I am proud of my work and accomplishments at Novell, but now is the time in my career to do something else, and I look forward to new challenges. Novell is strategically well positioned to remain a viable and significant vendor in the enterprise software space."

Novell chairman and CEO Jack Messman said he will oversee Stone's responsibilities on an interim basis.

"We thank Chris for his service to Novell over the past two and one half years," Messman said in a statement. "He made significant contributions to changes in our strategic direction, and his vision and energy will be missed. We wish him well."

Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL, who worked closely together with Stone after Novell joined OSDL, also offered his condolences.

"Chris Stone has played a key role in the acceleration of Linux, and we wish him all the best," Cohen said in a statement. "Stone was instrumental in Novell's acquisition of SUSE and in joining and taking a leadership role with OSDL."

The news barely impacted the company's stock, as shares of Novell ended the day up 1.1 percent, or 8 cents, at $7.18.

Comment from Linuxtoday:
 

tone ( Nov 5, 2004, 23:51:51 )

I never heard of this guy before, but I will tell you what: Novell is a great company poised to do big things...however, I have the sense that they have a real lack of direction -- that is, they are all dressed up with no where to go. So, to me, that usually means executives with little or no ideas, or executives with so many competing ideas that there is no coherence to the business. For example, the Suse product, should be much further along in terms of quality and functionality, after a year or so under Novell's tutalege. I just see them re-releasing the same thing over and over again -- the consumer is going to not to want to pay $70 every 3 months for that (!!) The departure of a senior exec from such an environment should be seen as a great weight lifting from the back of Novell and a reason to buy more stock. John Bailo Texeme Construct http://texeme.com

Why Sun's JDS deserves a try Tech News on ZDNet.

Something rather strange happened earlier this month. Sun released -- but did not announce -- a Solaris-based version of Release 2 of its Java Desktop System (JDS). Given the significance of JDS R2, for which a Linux-based version has existed since May 2004, why would Sun avoid drawing attention to this release?

Though it comes with an operating system (Linux or Solaris), JDS' primary value proposition is as a productivity tool. JDS is no Microsoft Office, but it does address most productivity needs for most users and, in what may be an advantage to some but disadvantage to others, it often does so in an MS-Office-incompatible way. (That incompatibility may be rectified as a result of a recent cross-licensing agreement between Microsoft and Sun.)

At a subscription price of $50 per year (officially, it's $100, but the $50 promo price shows no signs of changing), any software product that includes an operating system (Novell's SuSE Linux or Sun's Solaris 9, both for x86), a full-blown productivity suite (StarOffice), Exchange-compatible mail and calendaring (via Novell's Ximian Evolution Client), a complete suite of Java development tools, and upgrade protection via automatic updates (the key benefit of the annual subscription), is a bargain.

Talkback - ZDNet I admire Sun more and more every day.

In the past, I often thought Sun was shooting itself in the foot with their "we must get Microsoft" attitude and actions. Today I see Sun having settled their differences with MS to the always popular tune, "north of a billion dollars by a fair piece", grasped they can't be a CPU company effectively in today's market, developed Java with community involvement while maintaining ownership/control, recognized the value of Solaris if positioned/priced properly, supported open source where it makes sense, and made the decision to not be a services company ala IBM.

I've seen lots of posts about the "Sun setting" but I honestly believe Sun is turning the company around and by offering multiple ways to buy/lease/rent/subscribe/use software they are introducing alternatives to the more traditional methods and that's a winner for consumers. Some would argue their marketing is too fragmented and going in different directions, to that I would say that sometimes, especially in a stagnant market, you have no choice but to throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.

Oh, and not to make a dig against Linux but if Sun plays Solaris on the X86 right then all bets are off. With Sun's financial power and technical know how, a serious contender in the proprietary OS market is all but a sure thing. In all my contacts with people using Solaris, I have never heard any serious negatives about it and that's saying a lot.

Last, I find it striking that the author suggests a very cheap PC (or device?) based on the technology outlined, and that Steve Ballmer said much the same thing just last week. Two very different views of the market, in fact almost polar opposite views, arriving at the same conclusion. Now tell me how scary that is...

Sun Responds to HP We stand by our opinions -- Chilling Effects Clearinghouse

From readers comments:

This arguing over Unix between Sun and HP is like arguing about the placement of deck chairs on the Titanic. Unix is losing its appeal. The nasty comments about who is better in an ever decreasing market sounds like the false bravado of Apple advocates for the corporate workplace - simply wrong.

1. All...

   Well, Mr. Schwartz does seem to have acceptable Intel from HP and I agree that the response to the ice queen's minions was almost so quick that his contacts may include HP legal. I also agree that I don't see herself making quite so big of a meltdown as to pursue this: she has to know that too many past and current HP vets would love to "have to" provide info that would support ANYONE over queen carly (aka., killer of the "HP Way"). No, HP will not pursue this in any tech arena and I suspect they will miss the courtroom too... but I would have to wonder if the *nix folks who already seem to be circling the wagons might blow the reasonable conclusions away rather than blast a major player... sad that, should it happen... especially when the evil queen needs a serious slap. IMHO, of course.

   Comment by padraig — Friday, October 22 2004 @ 10:08 am
    

2. I'd have to agree with the comment that this is like arguing about placement of deck chairs on the Titanic, with one caveat: HP seems to be concerned with providing a ferry service off the ship. As an OpenVMS manager I'm quite content with the fact that it can't be ported to the IA-32 chipset and achieve reasonable performance. To the extent that ISVs migrate to Windows or Linux on IA-32, we add those systems; to the extent they program to the Enterprise featureset, we run them under Tru64 or OpenVMS, as appropriate. Given the very small marketplace penetration of Solaris on IA-32, I fail to see how HP's lack of HP-UX on IA-32 is an issue. I'm rather more concerned with the 10-20 year lead DEC/Compaq/HP have on integrating Windows, IA-32 Unix, and Enterprise systems, over Sun's traditional wars with Microsoft and IA-32 Unix...

   Comment by Jeff — Friday, October 22 2004 @ 10:36 am
    

3. My only comment is, it seems Mr. Schwartz has a lot of time on his hand to be industry critic. I think it would best he focused on his own dirty laundry and tending to his own matters. This reminds me of when I was high school. A guy who wants to date a young lady. He cannot think of enough good things to say about himself, so he says a lot of bad things about the other guy to level the playing field.

   Mr. Schwartz and Mr. McNealy, No one has every talked their way to a championship . Stop being NATOlistic (No Action Talk Only) and get down to business.

   Cheers
   Friendly Spider Man

[APR 12, 2004] Customers in Charge - Computerworld

(COMPUTERWORLD) - No question about it, this one belongs to you. IT customers were the driving force, the ultimate bottom line, the wake-up-to-reality call behind the historic Sun-Microsoft accord announced the morning of April 2 [QuickLink 45970]. Scott McNealy and Steve Ballmer spoke softly but carried a big peace treaty with your names on it -- wrapping up years of angry rhetoric and a fierce, often counterproductive rivalry that bedeviled enterprise IT operations with interoperability headaches and unnecessary expense.

"We're in a new era of customer-driven competition," Ballmer said.

McNealy agreed, "The customer is in charge."

No kidding. But were you impressed by this dramatically staged ending to the industry's most legendary feud? Well, not exactly.

"I want to see something concrete and real," said Daniel Morreale, CIO at the North Bronx Healthcare Network in New York, voicing what was no doubt the skeptical reaction of many of his peers across the nation.

Tony Scott, chief technology officer at General Motors, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal about his pointed advice to both CEOs to get their acts together. He's had to educate the pair on "the real pain that customers go through when you have multiple incompatible standards and technologies."

That message seems to have finally struck its target. McNealy and Ballmer, usually glib and cheerfully combative with the press, were subdued and serious at the announcement of their truce. Once the initial element of surprise wears off, they'll have a lot to prove. As technology buyers have gained more power over suppliers, they've lost patience with petty product warfare.

"It's good that there is going to be an era of cooperation, but what does it really mean to people?" asked Satish Ajmani, CIO of the Santa Clara County government in Sun's home state of California. "What are they going to deliver that's different from what we have today, and will it result in an overall cost reduction for us?"

Answering those questions had better be the primary focus of both vendors as they move into detente. Microsoft will pay its longtime rival $1.6 billion to settle Sun's antitrust suit and resolve several patent claims. Far more meaningful to users, however, is the potential of the 10-year commitment to collaborate on technology and to license each other's intellectual property.

Customers will be waiting -- and not all that patiently -- to see the concrete follow-through on those lofty assurances of improvements in server integration, easier interoperability between products such as Java and .Net, and seamless support of each other's protocols.

Beyond the customer issues, some significant external factors also took a turn behind the wheel of this deal.

Both companies are worried about the rise of Linux and the ever-present threat of IBM's enterprise dominance. Sun has suffered through years of financial setbacks and faces yet another quarterly loss and an upcoming layoff of 3,300 employees. Microsoft has spent tens of millions of dollars in courtroom battles over antitrust issues, and its stinging defeat last month by the European Commission moved its legal troubles as a monopolist onto the world stage.

What both vendors now face is a journey just as arduous as the year of secret talks that brought them this far. They must now mutate 15 years of competitive DNA, convince thousands of startled employees to embrace the enemy and finally readjust to a new reality. The one where customers are in charge.

Maryfran Johnson is editor in chief of Computerworld. You can contact her at maryfran_johnson@computerworld.com.

Sun readies hardened solaris

In an effort to batten down its operating system, sun microsystems inc. this week will unveil a sweeping set of security enhancements to solaris, as well as new managed security services.

The moves, which include a rewriting of parts of the Solaris kernel as well as a major partnership with VeriSign Inc., are in large part a response to well-established security initiatives from rivals Microsoft Corp. and IBM.

The advancements are also the latest indicator of how seriously software developers and manufacturers take the issue of security, according to experts.

"It's easier to use security as a selling point in an OS than in an individual security product," said Pete Lindstrom, an analyst at Spire Security LLC, in Malvern, Pa. "This is a shot against the growing discontent with security as well as against [Microsoft's] NGSCB [Next-Generation Secure Computing Base]."

To incorporate some of the new security features in Solaris 10, which is due in the fourth quarter, Sun engineers rewrote portions of the Solaris kernel. The move, said company officials in Santa Clara, Calif., will likely prevent competitors from being able to replicate those features.

Most of the enhancements due in the operating system are designed to prevent users from escalating privileges or to halt malicious behavior before it leads to a compromise or data loss.

Among the biggest improvements is the addition of Solaris N1 Grid Containers, a technology that lets administrators create virtual instances of Solaris within running versions of the operating system. The instances share common features and capabilities, but each acts as its own copy, complete with an independent naming service.

Even if an administrator has a root account on one instance, known as a zone, he or she won't be able to affect other zones, which limits the damage attackers can do if they obtain root access, Sun officials said. Customers will have the option of installing a stripped-down Solaris 10 with no network services or interfaces available. Users can then turn on whatever they choose.

Sun has also added a technology known as process rights management to Solaris 10. Lifted from Sun's military-grade, hardened Trusted Solaris operating system, this concept implements the principle of least privilege, which is common on many sensitive systems.

By assigning each user account and process the lowest level of privileges needed to complete a given task, the technology is able to restrict what actions even highly privileged users can take. For example, a Web server can be bound directly to port 80, preventing it from being used for other purposes by an attacker.

On the services side, Sun is partnering with VeriSign, of Mountain View, Calif., to offer vulnerability assessment, threat monitoring and 24-hour network security management, according to Sun officials. The offerings will be based on VeriSign's Intelligence and Control Services.

The changes to Solaris are significant, given Sun's wide lead in the enterprise Unix market. In the third quarter of last year, the company shipped nearly 77,000 copies of Solaris. Hewlett-Packard Co. shipped about 31,000 copies of its version of Unix, while IBM sold 27,000 copies of Unix, according to numbers compiled by market researcher IDC, of Framingham, Mass.

Red Hat Buys Netscape Server Software from AOL (LinuxWorld). The two products Red Hat's picking up include Netscape Directory Server, a LDAP server for storing user profiles, policies, and application settings; and Netscape Certificate Management System, a digital certificate-based authentication system.

Boston.com - Business - At peace with Microsoft, Sun chief whips off the gloves over Red Hat

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff  |  October 2, 2004

Sun Microsystems Inc.'s combative chief executive, Scott McNealy, fresh from resolving his long-running quarrel with archrival Microsoft Corp., has found a new target for his wrath: Linux software maker Red Hat Inc.

''We love Linux," said McNealy at yesterday's meeting of the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council in Newton. ''We just don't love Red Hat."

Sun Microsystems was one of the dominant computer companies of the late-1990s Internet boom. But it has lost nearly $4.5 billion over the past three years, hammered by an industrywide slump and growing competition from Linux.

Most Sun computers run Solaris, the company's own version of the high-powered Unix operating system. But many Solaris users have been moving to Linux to save money. Linux is an ''open source" operating system that was created by a worldwide network of volunteers and can be modified by those who use it. Linux, like other open-source products, can be obtained free of charge.

But McNealy says switching to Red Hat Linux is a false economy. Even though Linux itself is free, Red Hat charges high prices for customer service and support. ''You can run Solaris for 20 to 30 percent of the cost of 'free,' " McNealy said.

McNealy stressed that Linux wasn't the enemy. He noted that Sun is one of the leading contributors of free software to open-source projects, that Sun sells computers equipped with Linux, and that the company plans to release the next version of Solaris as an open-source product. ''Open source is not a threat," he said, just Red Hat. ''They're a competitor," McNealy said, ''and we're going to blow them out of the water if we can."

Earlier Sun crusades haven't worked out so well. During the 1990s, McNealy vowed that Sun's Java computing technology would eventually render Microsoft Windows obsolete. Later, Microsoft licensed Java, but made modifications to the code that Sun considered illegal. That began a lengthy series of contract and antitrust lawsuits.

This year, Sun mended fences with Microsoft, which paid Sun nearly $2 billion to settle their disputes. Now the two companies have formed a technology alliance aimed at ensuring their products work well together. During his talk, McNealy flashed an image of himself and Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer laughing together like old friends. ''There's a scene you probably never thought you'd see," McNealy quipped.

Still, McNealy, once famous for his anti-Microsoft insults, couldn't resist taking a few more jabs at the Redmond, Wash., giant. At one point, he referred to Microsoft's popular e-mail program Outlook as ''Lookout," because of its vulnerability to computer viruses.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.

Linux Today - Boston Globe At Peace with Microsoft, Sun Chief Whips Off the Gloves over Red Hat

Slashdot Solaris vs Linux Continues raffe writes "Solaris Kernel Developer Eric Schrock is bloging more about the Solaris vs. Linux issue and linux kernel moneky Greg is answering on his blog. Eric's first part is is also still up and Greg's answer " Another reader also submitted reviews of the Linux desktop vs. Solaris 9. User reviews are welcome; please note that ITMJ is part of OSTG like Slashdot.

This article was published in Computer Sweden - Ski resort company abandons Linux

Ski resort company abandons Linux
Sälen-based Skistar first Nordic company to deploy
Oracle 9i RAC

Snow safety. Skistar's new system won't guarantee snow but higher availability. </
Sleeps soundly. Anders Beronius gets a good night's sleep. He rests assured that his booking system is crunching away.
Cluster machine. Skistar's entire booking system is based on two Sun Fire V480R with twin processors.

By: Anders Nordner
Translation by: Anders Lotsson

IN PRACTICE
Oracle's committed support organization for its Linux customers wasn't good enough for Skistar. The company went for Linux in mid-2001, but now it's switching to Solaris. At the same time, Skistar's Oracle 8 database is replaced with Oracle 9i Real Application Cluster. When Skistar, then still called Sälenstjärnan, deployed a new system in May 2001, it was based on Oracle 8 and Linux. The company chose Linux because it offered better performance and higher stability than NT (see Computer Sweden, May 25th, 2001). Cost was another factor. "If there are two solutions that work perfectly, we'll get the one that's free," Anders Beronius, IT director of Skistar's ski resorts in Sälen said then. Now the company has replaced Linux with Sun Solaris. And the Oracle 8 failover configuration is replaced with the cluster version of Oracle 9i RAC. This makes the company a Nordic pioneer of that type of cluster installations.

Couldn't handle emergencies
 

"We switched from Linux because it was difficult to solve emergencies using Linux," says Anders Beronius.

Running Oracle on top of Linux turned out to be almost untried. There is limited competence in that type of system. Also, the company needed to increase scalability and improve performance even more.

The booking systems that the system is running are at the core of Skistar's business. That is where hotels, lift tickets, cottages and everything related to the business are booked.

Always available
"Availability is the top priority. The system must never fail," says Anders Beronius.

Availability is expected to be achieved by means of the cluster installation. The system runs on a pair of Sun Fire V480R machines located in Sälen.

"Competence in Sun products is significantly easier to get hold of than Linux competence. Linux may be cheaper, but you can hold Sun responsible for any Solaris problems", says Anders Beronius.

The cluster installation provides reliability, he says.

"Now, we don't have a so-called single point of failure any more", says Anders Beronius, IT director of Skistar.

What Sun Really Wants to Sell in the x86 Market

But after talking with Jack O'Brien, Sun's group manager for x86 operating system marketing—aka Solaris x86 and Linux—I think Sun has decided to really support Solaris 86. In short, Solaris x86 will no longer be the red-haired stepchild of the Solaris family.

When I last spoke with Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's guru of all things operating system, we agreed that Solaris on Intel had always been a few features short of Solaris on SPARC.

Your customers would get a taste for Solaris, but then they'd find out that to really get the most out of it, they'd need to upgrade from Intel to SPARC systems. That worked for a while, but these days customers—used to the bottom-line prices of x86 systems and Linux—aren't willing to pony up the cash for SPARC.

Now, Sun, according to O'Brien, is making sure that Solaris 10 will be "feature- and bug-compliant" on both the x86 and SPARC platforms. Now, I'm a show-me kind of guy, and this isn't the first time I've heard similar things about Solaris x86. But this time, Sun appears to be walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

One of Solaris' best features has been its clustering support. Hewlett-Packard Co.'s TruCluster and IBM Corp.'s AIX are fine and dandy, but I've always really liked the unified view and control that Solaris gave me over clustering.

It also so happens that this is one of the areas where I think Solaris has a clear edge over Linux. And this crown jewel of Solaris has never been available on Solaris x86—until now.

On May 11, Sun made Sun Cluster 3.1 4/04 available on Solaris x86. OK, so maybe I'm wrong, and Sun is trying to make Solaris x86 a serious operating system for its customers and resellers.

Of course, companies don't make their buying decisions based on operating systems alone. According to Kusnetzky, they usually base their decisions on either the applications or the infrastructure software (DBMSs and the like) that they use.

And it seems that Solaris on Intel is making headway here with its ISVs. For example, Oracle Corp., I'm told, will be bringing Oracle 10G for Solaris x86 in its next quarter.

Of course, the first place resellers should look for Solaris x86 customers is in existing Solaris shops. For these users, moving from SPARC to Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron servers will be a no-brainer. Their existing IT staffs should have no problem running Solaris on either platform.

Where does Linux fit into Sun's plans? According to O'Brien, all other things being equal at a customer's site, Sun will be pushing Solaris x86.

Enterprise Unix Roundup Solaris x86 Resurgent, Sun's Side of the Story

The rest of the conversation was more or less about Solaris for x86, which we've derided on the good word of sys admins in the field who don't much like it as a pale shadow of Solaris on SPARC.

Loiacano's on an offensive to undo much of the criticism Solaris x86 has endured, pointing to its growing base of supported hardware types (Pentium 4, Xeon, dual-processor, grid, and blade servers); ongoing efforts to optimize the platform (the Atlas programs, which he says have improved Solaris performance upward of 60 percent in some benchmarks, but generally a respectable 10 percent to 20 percent overall); and an increase in simple personnel resources directed to the operating system, with 150 to 175 employees being pushed into the breach.

We admired Loiacano's candor about Solaris x86's deficiencies. (The software catalog remains a concern despite recent additions, sitting at around 1,000 applications vs. SPARC Solaris' 10,000 to 12,000 title list.) However, he soon got to a point familiar to Sun watchers -- dressing the limitations up as a qualified recognition of Linux's value proposition over Solaris in parts of the commodity server market:

"I'm not going to compete in a white box environment ... I'm not going to go head to head with Dell on a $2,200 server, and that's all I'm going to sell you. My value add is that I sell a system. It's the hardware; it's the operating system; it's the middleware stack; it's support services on a worldwide basis."

Start with the positive. That's what Dale Carnegie always said, and Loiacano managed that. So while explaining the success of Linux in the past few years, even his negatives came off as more of a matter of perspective:

"[IT people] want to get on x86 because it's fast and cheap [...] When people say there's a Linux phenomenon, from an IT perspective I would argue that it's more of an x86 phenomenon. That said, the development community is very much interested in the open source aspect, the ability to control their destiny, controlling their code, etc. IT is not enamored by that, but some of the developers are."

Loiacano went on to argue that much of Sun's apparent dithering on Linux has been the product of a fickle market, as well. The company's ill-fated in-house Linux distribution (Sun Linux), for instance, fell victim to customers too sensitive to Red Hat's brand:

"Even though it was primarily Red Hat 7.2 [and] open source, people said 'yeah, but you know what? It doesn't say Red Hat on it, so I'm not gonna do it.'"

Exit Sun Linux, and enter resulting OEM deals with Linux distributors Red Hat and Suse, which represent the operating systems on which the Java Enterprise (JES) and Desktop systems will run.

According to Loiacano, although Linux support for the JES will lag behind Solaris x86 by a (convenient) 90 days, the operating system remains supported at Sun -- something even Schwartz wasn't denying when he crossed his own Linux PR Rubicon several weeks ago. The price of the software stack in which Linux will reside, though, comes out lower for Solaris customers, reinforcing a lesson Loiacano was clearly out to stress during our interview: "There is no longer a free Linux," because no one among the sort of IT operations that constitute Sun's bread and butter can work up much enthusiasm for downloading a few CD ROM images and calling it an infrastructure.

Our takeaway? Primarily that, Mr. Schwartz's comments notwithstanding (not to mention the lurid tales of Mr. McNealy's "decapitated penguin head"), Sun is largely rational in how it is addressing the Linux question. It knows where its market lies: Not in one-off Web server installs for corporate intranets, or trusty but under-taxed SMB servers for workgroups, where Linux can't help but dominate if a Unix is to be used at all. Sun has better things in mind for Solaris x86 and its Intel-based offerings in general, and we expect a bitter fight there.

The real change is in the rhetoric.

As we mentioned earlier, much of HP's recent "Linux Lifeline" was as much an emotional appeal as it was a great deal. In the years we've covered Linux, we've come face to face numerous times with a sort of emotional resonance you don't get from "Windows enthusiasts" or the "Solaris community." Perhaps that's the David and Goliath story coming to the top, with the traditional "everyone loves an underdog" narrative finding itself recast in terms of operating systems. Perhaps it's because Linux has created a lot of converts due to its ubiquity and growing ease of use, representing the cherished first love of many a dedicated Unix nerd. Whatever its cause, and no matter how much some observers poo-poo the Mao-like fervor of some Linux enthusiasts at full froth, that emotional resonance is there, and waiting to be either mined for profit or stumbled through like a mine field.

HP figured it out, IBM has certainly figured it out, and some time in the past few weeks, Sun decided to see if there's a middle road, neither picking a fight nor walking away from one, where its own operating systems is concerned.

As long as we're all clear.

In Other News

• Were you tossing and turning last night because you thought your corporate accountant had forgotten to mail SCO its Linux license money? That's a pity, because the company pushed the deadline for doubling the prices on its licenses back to October 31. Some investment bankers are still fond of SCO, though, taking the time to rate its stock a "buy," while cautioning that SCO shares will be worthless if its case with IBM falls through.
• Sun unveiled the UltraSPARC IV, setting its release for early 2004. Sun expects the processor will double the throughput of its high-end to midrange systems.

JupiterMedia's Enterprise Linux Forum is set to take place in Washington, D.C. next week, on Wednesday and Thursday (the 22nd and 23rd).

Security Roundup

Sometimes we run into problems picking noteworthy exploits and bugs to cover because it's impossible to cover all the errata every vendor posts, and because we aim for security issues that concern a healthy number of common Unix variants. This week, one that would be hard to top in terms of ubiquity reappeared two years after being identified: Four of the most common Unix shells are affected, and we're still scrolling down the list of affected vendors.

The shells in question are sh, tcsh, bash, and ksh. The vulnerability is a behavior in those shells that allows for fairly arbitrary access of files in /tmp by any user using the shells' << redirection operator. Since /tmp is a sort of DMZ in the average Unix system, there's the potential for malicious users to replace temporary but important files with contents of their own choosing, making it possible to give themselves higher privileges or to corrupt files.

Security Focus has a complete list of affected vendors and an in-depth discussion of the bug.

As we noted last week, laziness and sloth can be more potent enemies than the most determined cracker. Here's a case of an old exploit (it's been known about for a few years already) still being patched and replaced by vendors.

Tips of the Trade

Last month, we provided a series of tips on regular expressions (regexps). Since then, several of our tips have featured programs that use regexps. This week, we'd like to revisit regexps to point out a truly handy application that first explains in plain English how to say something in regular expressions: ^txt2regex$.

It's written using bash, so there's no need to compile or build anything, and it supports many, many regexp idioms, including, according to the Web site, "awk, ed, emacs, grep, perl, php, procmail, python, sed, and vim."

The nice thing about this sort of tool is that it offers fast answers for users first stumbling through the process of learning their way around regexps, while also providing an education in one of the trickier aspects of Unix life. Good stuff.

Linux Today - Computerworld Sun Exec Open-Source is Irrelevant

With all the desktop distros such as Lindows, Lycoris and Xandros building their proprietary extensions into otherwise open software, I have to take issue with that. How can I use the argument that I won't use Windows because of it's proprietary nature, and then be expected to fork out a bunch of dollars for Lindows which is trying to do the same thing? The fact that it is a Linux distro will not fool me into buying it, because of it's proprietary nature. I don't want to get so engrained in using a particular distro, only to have it close it's doors in six months time and be left without an easy replacement. Or worse yet, they try to leverage their proprietary offering to try to get you to buy other products or upgrade. Forget it, I'm sticking with the distros that take a totally open approach. Once bitten...

Sun exec Open-source is irrelevant - Computerworld Open standards matter far more, he argues
Opinion by Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president, Sun Microsystems

SEPTEMBER 12, 2003 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Last weekend, I went to go look up a patent filing at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). It was a really engaging experience—it's a fascinating site, with filings dating back to 1790. Just for yuks, I decided to explore what it takes to file a patent. I was in for a rude surprise: The site, and the PTO, demand that all online patent applications be submitted using Microsoft Word.

Now, why is that a problem?

Well, it's a problem because my company doesn't use Microsoft products. Nor can most people afford them. And if you don't have a copy of Word, does that mean you have to pay Microsoft for the privilege of submitting a patent application? To protect your own intellectual property? And the government has mandated that? Something must be wrong here.

One school of thought says, "Open-source will stop this nonsense."

I don't buy it.

To me, open-source is irrelevant to the discussion. And as the industry's single largest contributor to the open-source movement, I don't say that lightly.

The issue for patent submitters isn't the licensing convention used to build the word-processing application. At least for my customers, purchasing decisions are never made on the basis of the licensing convention used to build the product—customers care far more about product quality, price/performance when compared to the competition, and (especially of late) their security attributes. None of those issues have anything to do with open-source any more than whether Sun employs left-handed engineers to build the products, or marketing folks who work weekends (we do, both).

What's at stake isn't whether the source code to Microsoft Word is available. Even if it were, you'd still need a copy of Microsoft Word to submit a patent. And you'd have to pay for the brand, or be smart enough to build the source tree.

The issue isn't open-source, folks—it's open standards.

If the file format used to submit a patent were publicly available, it'd be up to me to determine how I elected to submit my application—so long as I followed the standard. And if I stopped liking the word processor I was using, I could move to another that supported the standard. My choice. And if the standard were royalty-free, such as those formats available through OASIS, then any organization that wanted to interact with the PTO, or with the patent submitters, could do so without fear of dependency upon proprietary technology.

Now a variety of technology companies are delivering proprietary technology into the world, and they're creating dependencies while hiding under a shroud called "open-source." Don't be fooled, they're shirking the very open standards that guarantee interoperability. Why? Because they don't like interoperability—they like dependency.

As the supplier of the only cross-platform office productivity suite on the market, StarOffice, I don't say the following lightly: Ignore the fact that StarOffice is open-source. It's an irrelevance.

Focus on the open standards we follow.

They matter far, far more.

[May 28, 2004]Linux Today - Linux Vs. Windows CeBIT Panelists Weigh The OS by Jacqueline Emigh

Do Linux security exploits really belong in the same league as Windows security holes? Are OpenOffice and its derivatives actually as good as Microsoft Office? These are just a couple of the questions debated this week by a panel of experts at the CeBIT America show in New York City.

Comparing Linux and Windows security amounts to a "chicken and egg" issue, according to Kathy Ivens, an author and consultant.

Given that Linux is a more secure environment, it's tough to know whether this is because Linux is "inherently more secure," or because Windows is still the more prevalent environment, Ivens said, during a panel moderated by Paul Gillin, VP of Editorial at TechTarget.

Also during the session, Nicholas Petreley, an analyst and consultant at Evans Data, contended that regardless of the numbers of exploits per platform, Windows exploits are often much more severe. Citing materials produced by Microsoft itself, Petreley said that many of the growing population of worms targeting Windows let outside hackers "completely take over" a server.

In contrast, Linux exploits are generally more limited in scope, and more likely to lend themselves to insider attacks, Petreley suggested. One Linux exploit, for instance, permits information in Firebird servers to be overwritten.

Generally speaking, though, Windows is still easier to administer, according to several of the panelists. "That's where Linux is behind, especially in directory services," Petreley observed.

Jon "Maddog" Hall, president and executive director of Linux International, pointed to third-party tools, available from vendors such as IBM and Computer Associates (CA), for managing Linux along with MVS and Unix, for example.

"In enterprise environments, that's what (you're) looking for," said Hall. Yet, he admitted, companies need to pay for such tools.

"(Administrative) controls are a lot better (in Windows)," Ivens asserted, citing printer set-up as one example.

Meanwhile, other panelists pointed to freely available Linux tools such as Samba.

What about Linux on the desktop? OpenOffice and its derivatives lack some of the features of Microsoft Office, according to Mark Minasi, a writer and consultant

Petreley, though, argued that EI (Evermore Integrated) Office, an office suite from Evermore Software, contains a similar feature set to Microsoft Office. Unlike Microsoft Office, however, EI Office doesn't allow anti-aliasing of fonts, he acknowledged, attributing this distinction to a decision by authors of the Java-based program to reduce overhead. EI Office runs on both Linux and Windows.

OpenOffice types of suites also tend to come with fewer fonts, indicated Hall. One rather obvious reason is that some font creators charge for the fonts, according to Hall.

On an overall basis, Linux applications still lack the "fit and finish" of Windows apps, Minasi charged. To gain more traction on the desktop, Linux needs a better GUI, he insisted.

Ivens, however, argued that GUIs aren't necessarily the way to go for all applications. In fact, some database and accounting apps have actually taken performance hits from the advent of the Windows GUI.

"There's no reason to have a GUI to punch in numbers," Ivens said. She harkened back to the days when the MAS 90 accounting system was at its zenith. Back then, MAS 90 was sold in Unix and DOS flavors. "My clients loved it," according to Ivens.

Ivens would also like to see fewer features in today's office suites. Microsoft Office, she quipped, seems to be evolving under an illusion in Redmond that "everyone in the world is collaborating on a single document."

Yet most users take advantage of only a small fraction of Office features, and migration to Microsoft Office 2003 has been particularly slow, Ivens observed.

In terms of third-party desktop applications, Linux is now starting to catch up with Windows, panelists generally concurred. Quicken, for instance, is now available for Linux, said Hall.

Desktop gaming, however, is one area where Linux still lags, according to Petreley. Yet with increasing improvements to game consoles such as Game Cube, more consumers are migrating from Windows-based PC games to consoles.

On the other hand, Windows doesn't necessarily hold much of an edge when it comes to ease of installation, according to the CeBIT panelists. Many users don't know how tricky Windows can be to install, since Windows still comes pre-installed on most PCs, members of the CeBIT audience were told.

Hall said that he'll be more than happy if Linux ultimately captures 30 percent of the desktop space.

"Competition is good," he declared. Hall reasoned that, as a result, no operating system -- not even Linux -- should totally dominate any market.

Licensing

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