Sun Microsystems Inc. next week plans to launch a full 64-bit
Solaris upgrade, hoping to convince customers that Solaris provides
the scalability and reliability that Microsoft Corp. is only
promising with Windows NT 5.0.
…improvements over Solaris 2.6, the present version, include
an updated and faster Java Development Kit, Version 1.1.6; a
backward-compatible 64-bit kernel that runs more applications on a
single server; Windows-like ease of use; and the end of
command-line entries Sun sources said.
The upgrade, which will run on SPARC and Intel Corp. hardware,
will ship in November.
“We tried NT, but it was sort of clumsy,” Steve Dougherty,
director of Internet services at EarthLink Network Inc., an ISP in
Pasadena, Calif. said. “It did not allow us to use useful parts
separately, which Solaris does. The only other [alternative] that’s
interesting is Linux.”