Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Mon 26th May 2003 23:36 UTC
Linux only has a small percentage of the computing market, however Microsoft already considers it a major competition as the open source OS steals the hearts of many users. Following the hard numbers though, Microsoft also increases its market share on both server and desktop space with time. The only logical explanation is that Linux steals quite a market share from the traditional UNIX providers (SCO, Sun, SGI, HP, IBM). But only Sun seems to truly be in a real Linux trouble, as it is the one with a resistance to Linux integration to its full product range.
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SunOS was a superbly good implementation of UNIX. Solaris took a long time to match the reliability of SunOS. And it has never matched the hands-on tactile responsiveness of SunOS.
Sun's mission with Solaris was to create an OS for their mainframe-killer computers. And for the most part, Sun has succeeded.
Thus today's Solaris a giant OS most suited for giant systems. It is no longer the lean, mean and reliable workstation / small server OS that SunOS used to be. It's no longer a fun OS, but a heavy duty consulting-enabled corporate OS.
As most of the innovation is on the small systems, Solaris is left with no evolutionary path forward except to become more and more of a mainframe OS.
Linux is the OS for the new small scale systems. While Linux has also been adapted to run on large systems, at heart it remains an OS for small servers and workstations. With Linux available to many people on low-end hardware, an incredible amount of development can take place in the Linux community.
It is much like the tale of mammals vs. dinosaurs. Sun and Solaris are dinosaurs. The company and the products are mostly large and heavy, slow and ponderous. It's a headache to even deal with them. Their salespeople are brutally pushy and disgustingly clubby. Yuck.
Tell me ONE really cool thing that's happened on Solaris in the past couple years. That's pretty much the crux of the story.
Maybe Sun can get together a bunch of their big machines in a cluster and call it Jurassic Park.