“The Palo Alto-based company plans to reveal this week at the
launch of its next-generation Solaris 8 that it is giving away the
operating system free-of-charge to anyone who wants to use it, said
sources close to the company.”
“Sun’s operating system software, which runs on its
proprietary Sparc platform, as well as Intel Corp. platforms,
currently sells for about $245 for a desktop license upgrade and
$2,455 for a Sun Workgroup Server license upgrade. The server
can sell for as high as $12,700 for a server running between five
and eight microprocessors or $32,400 for a machine running between
16 and 32 processors….”
“Analysts said they do not expect the move to have a major
impact on Sun’s bottom line, or at the high end of the market, but
it may steer some in the industry away from evaluating Microsoft’s
upcoming Windows 2000, which is also due to ship in February.”