Sun switches Solaris to Intel chips -- all the cool kids are doing it

Intel doesn't seem to be content with its recent performance and market share wins over AMD, it's really going for the kill here. The chip giant just snapped up another partner in x86 crime: Sun Microsystems. Sun and Intel are announcing a "broad strategic alliance" today to promote Intel Xeon workstations and servers running the Solaris OS. Sun and AMD have been buddy buddy for a little while now, with AMD64 chips being heavily promoted with Solaris as of late, but it looks like those Intel roadmaps and market share promises were just too good to pass up. On Sun's end, Solaris will be optimised up for upcoming single, dual and quad processor Xeon systems that can run Solaris, Windows and Linux, which are due for 2007. Sun will also be working with Intel on "4-way systems," but doesn't seem to be doing away with its current SPARC and X64 offerings just yet. For Intel's part, the chip maker "is embracing Solaris as a mainstream OS," and is joining in a Solaris OEM agreement to allow Intel the option to distribute and support the Solaris OS. Intel will also lend a hand optimizing Solaris and Java for Xeon, and is putting its stamp of approval on OpenSolaris, open Java and NetBeans as well. The two companies "anticipate rapid growth of Solaris on Xeon platforms," but with a mere 4200 apps on "800+ platforms," there sure seems to be a lot of room to grow for Sun.

[Jeff @ Jan 23rd 2007 8:28AM]

Sorry to be a fuddy duddy, but they had Solaris intel back in the 1990s... what's the deal?

[Ben @ Jan 23rd 2007 9:14AM]

If they are giving up on the SPARC chips then it is a big Deal Jeff.

Are they?

[bsm0f0 @ Jan 23rd 2007 9:42AM]

great, the cost of my next PC just went up $150.

[Aron Trimble @ Jan 23rd 2007 9:59AM]

I wonder if Sun is hot enough to keep those nasty Intel stickers off their boxes like Apple managed to do!

[bsm0f0 @ Jan 23rd 2007 12:52PM]

we have a few older Sun x86 machines ... no intel sticks.

[buster p. @ Jan 23rd 2007 1:02PM]

Sun's gonna be bought by Apple within the year, mark my words.

[kev @ Jan 23rd 2007 10:29PM]

That would be a disaster if Apple decides to manage how Sun continues to develop their software...Solaris is a server application operating system, and combined with SPARC processors, tends to make a little more sense than Linux on the system level...imagine Apple's ideas thrown into the mix. Ugh. If for whatever reason they do acquire them, which I highly doubt, they should just leave them alone since they know more than Apple about what they're doing. That's why companies who need a solid server app operating system choose Solaris + SPARC for some boxes.