Linux is now Oracle's low-end offering

"Oracle Corp. has rekindled its Solaris love. Sun's Solaris operating system will underlie new high-end data center appliances running the Oracle software stack. And Oracle EnterpriseLinux now becomes the preferred OS for lower-end commodity hardware.

"By making the Sparc/Solaris tandem the foundation of big-iron SMP appliances, the company is going back to its roots when Oracle and Sun were joined at the hip. Pre-Linux, Solaris was the de facto development platform for new Oracle software. New Oracle databases came out first on Solaris and later on everything else.

"That Solaris ardor faded as Oracle discovered the appeal of commodity (read: cheap) x86 hardware and Linux (read: free) operating systems. By putting the database on a cheap platform, Oracle could bleed the cost out of the solution without sacrificing its own software margins.

"On last month's epic teleconference outlining the company's Sun plans, Oracle president Charles Phillips and CEO Larry Ellison both extolled Solaris as its strategic enterprise platform. Only in response to questions did Ellison talk up Linux."

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