“Sun’s strategy towards Linux for most of this year has been
to provide a get-out option for Linux users who became
disenchanted. To this end Solaris has been engineered to provide a
relatively painless transition from Linux – initially to Intel
Solaris with the subsequent expectation of UltraSPARC
implementations. Externally the attitude of Sun towards Linux
was that it would encourage a lot of first-time Unix sites to break
away from NT, but that once sites attempted to deploy real world
applications on Linux they would rapidly find the need to move on
to a “mission-critical” commercial Unix system.”
“Well, Linux has certainly attracted a lot of users away from
NT, but the second part of the prediction has not occurred.
Generally speaking users are happy with the Linux experience and
are not hitting the glass ceiling of performance, manageability or
availability. Sun, however, has continued to profit from its
Internet presence, with most of the heavy-duty Web sites being
Sun-based. Rather than risk losing out in this very lucrative
market Sun has taken the logical decision. It has decided to offer
RedHat Linux through its SunStore online store. A direct link to
the Linux offer is at Linux.”