
Sun has really shifted gears lately with regards to Solaris, SPARC, and x86. For many years, Sun seemed to relegate Solaris x86 to the status of red-headed stepchild, undeserving of attention, nurturing, and support. It furthered this perception when in January of 2002, Sun announced it would not release Solaris 9, the newest upcoming Solaris operating system, on the x86 platform. Solaris 9 was to be a (more lucrative) SPARC-only platform release.