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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