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McNealy: Sun could have won out over Linux

“Sun Microsystems’ mishandling of Solaris on the Intel platform
left an opening for Linux to become established, when the company’s
Solaris OS could have won out instead, Sun co-founder and former
CEO Scott McNealy said when interviewed Thursday evening by former
Sun president Ed Zander at a Silicon Valley business and technology
forum.

“Sun was acquired by Oracle early in 2010 after facing heavy
losses amid a poor economy and industry-wide trends toward Intel
and Linux systems, which were not Sun specialties. But things could
have worked out differently, according to McNealy.

“Sun had its Solaris x86 product, which the company kept
reviving and cancelling. “If we had just grabbed the Intel Pentium
chip and done a one-way and two-way pizza box with Solaris on it,
Linux never would have happened,” McNealy said. “Google today would
be running on Solaris.” Oracle is still offering and developing
Solaris”


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