In an effort to make its version of Unix compare more favorably to Red Hat’s Linux, Sun Microsystems plans in coming weeks to begin selling its Solaris operating system through a subscription model.
Sun Plans Solaris Subscription Pricing
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Shouldn’t Sun commit to something? we sell linux, I mean Solaris on sparc, I mean x86.
Find a direction and start walking there. They seem to not know who they are, so they offer everything in hopes something will stick.
Even if Solaris were to come free of charge with the purchase of a server, why do they think companies will pay 3 times the cost in hardware for half the speed, compared to commodity Intel servers from HP,IBM,Dell..
Running Solaris on Sun hardware still leaves the customer locked in to a proprietary solution. Linux has freed us from being shafted by the proprietary UNIX vendors. A change to a subscription model will not change the underlying fact that Solaris is a closed source proprietary operating system.
Shouldn’t Sun commit to something?
Given Sun multi-year move to Project Orion, now known as the Java Enterprise System, this only makes sense to fit into their new business model. If anything, Sun is improving consistency across their product line.
*pricing aside* … so many people laughed when MS moved to this model. Now Red Hat and Sun have jumped on board. Fascinating. Simply fascinating.
The hardware designs are open. There are several companies that make their own SPARC boards and sparc machines. Solaris is just an OS that runs on SPARC and x86-32 & 64.
IBM, who’s riding the open source wave making $$ on the OS community and who is pressuring companies to give up their valuable IP that makes them profitable to Open Source although they made it and have the right to do what they want, recently opened their PowerPC design. They had 1 open design board I think. Maybe more coming. They are just now opening up their hardware, sun has been doing it for years.
As for solaris being closed source proprietary–some people need that and sun will provide solutions for those people as well as people who want open source.
As I said previously, some people require 1 company to turn to for all their solutions –sun.. some people want to hire consulting firms and to customize their OS’s by themselves and rely on their own upgrades. Some people need that, some people want 1 company to turn to who is committed to a product. Seriously if you need to modify the code in solaris then go use *BSD or Linux. That’s what they were made for. Solaris is for the enterprise, for companies who require that surperior support and without the hassel of dealing with multiple companies. Oh yeah Solaris is also more proven than linux as of right now, that may change but i dont think linux will surpass solaris (maybe on the x86, but not sparc)
Maybe you should check out how many sales sun is making recently- its rising rapidly more than it has in a LONG time. McNealy is getting his act together.
According to benchmarks, your speed comparisons fail short. 32-bit Ghz does not matter to the sparc.
I don’t like the idea of spreading your FUD all you want and contribute to people who have their life savings in sun micro, hurting people’s financial lives when you dont have the facts to proove your statements.
You can listen to competetors and ESR all you want. ESR thinks we should have software communism instead of capitalism, when sun and me think they should exist together.
REGARDING SUBSCRIPTIONS.. i agree with the model. Unlimited upgrades is a must. However, there should also be an option for a “full purchase”. The free solaris Os for personal use is just nifty though. I agree with them and I support different models as well.
Sun servers used to be expensive. But check out their latest products especially with their Opteron based servers. I think they have seriouls got their act together and have the best strategy. They have the most powerful Solaris/Sparc servers, x86 intel boxes that can run Linux and 64-bit Opteron systems that run either Solaris 32-bit or Linus and Solaris 64 bit for Opteron support is on the way I think.
I think you should start being open minded and really think about the big boys and not think Linux would solve every one’s problems.
Sun has a huge customer base and this subscription model in my mind is just an awesome strategy.
Really? Or does it only seem like that? Why did the OpenBSD team had problems getting documentation for UltraSparcIII then?
“In late November of 2002, OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt announced on the project’s mailing lists that after over a year of attempting to obtain useful UltraSparc III documentation, they had still not made much headway. In the email he rallied the OpenBSD community to help out, asking them to contact the people within Sun responsible for providing such information. C/Net reported on this in their story titled, Open-source clan in spat with Sun. The UltraSparc III is Sun’s third generation 64-bit RISC architecture based processor.
Sun boasts their UltraSparc III as an “open” architecture, yet seem to recognize that there is insufficient information freely available for the open source community to support it with operating systems. I have been told that the required documentation does exist, however, with a Sun part number of 805-0408-05-P. An early version of this manual was allegedly made available to Linux developers once a Confidential Disclosure Agreement was signed (Sun’s version of a Non-Disclosure Agreement), however no such offer has been made to the OpenBSD team, an offer that if made is likely counter to the project’s goals.
I attempted to discuss this issue with Danese Cooper who works in Sun’s Open Source Programs Office, with as of yet limited results. My goal is to gain a clear understanding of Sun’s official position on this situation, something that to date they seem unwilling to discuss with me. My continued attempts to get direct answers are described here.”
http://www.deadly.org/article.php3?sid=20030127144228
http://www.deadly.org/article.php3?sid=20021205015133
http://www.deadly.org/article.php3?sid=20021125231440
Perhaps Sun can’t stand competition from a better, more Free alternative *giggle*
All I can say to your assertions is, “are you an idiot?”, read the friendly news article and the primary platform mentioned in the article is X86, read and repeate 2 trillion times until you remember that, then move onto “Solaris x86”, repeat that 5trillion times, then you’ll get it.
Geeze, idiots seem to breed like rabbits and contribute nothing to the discussion.
Microsoft Software Assurance subscribers already know this – subscriptions for software is A SCAM.
Pay for full version updates and service…get security patches instead but of course promises, promises promises of more substantial upgrades “one day”.
A company like Sun simply can’t afford to alienate more Solaris users, and this will do it.
Where exactly does it say the subscription pertains only to Solaris x86? The article does not mention specifics about the the subscription offering, probably because Sun has not yet finalised it.
It is interesting to note the wording use in this article: “Sun revived a nearly exterminated version of Solaris…”. Sun is only keeping Solaris x86 ‘alive’ as a reaction to Linux. Sun has no clear vision for the future and certainly no clear Linux strategy.
Why did you make the remark:
“Even if Solaris were to come free of charge with the purchase of a server, why do they think companies will pay 3 times the cost in hardware for half the speed, compared to commodity Intel servers from HP,IBM,Dell..”
When the main competition mentioned in the article is Red Hat who is focused primarily on the x86/x86-64 market. Sun sells x86 servers running Solaris, their vision is Solaris on the server, linux on the desktop.
SUN has always said that they would *prefer* customers to purchase servers running Solaris, BUT if customers want Linux, they have no qualms with providing it, if that is what customers want.
As for SUNs committment to Linux, its a lot than what I can say IBM has done with their numerous projects that merely duplicated what was already being done. JFS, was it really needed? NGPL, a solution was alreading being developed by Red Hat. That doesn’t go into the lack luster support IBM has displayed by not porting their client applications across. Where is Lotus Notes? Lotus Smart Suite? their development software? Rational? come on, if they’re so gung-ho about Linux, where is the output from all this hype, apart from the sale over priced services?
Anonymous (IP: —.client.comcast.net) – Posted on 2004-04-01 04:49:56
If you look back at a previous post, I changed by nick name as someone else was using my handle on this site. I never hid that fact. Handle it like a man, and move on sunshine.
>Sun has no clear vision for the future and certainly no clear Linux strategy.
Sun’s vision is clear and clean as a whistle when you compare it to HP or IBM that want to sell whatever is hyped up the most at the moment.
The best gear for your company =))))
It’s so great to see one company that offers such wide solutions to so many problems.
IBM just keep shouting Linux which we all know isn’t the solution to all problems, security for instance.
Go get ’em Sun, we all know that you have what it takes, and allways did…
Isn’t Solaris x86 already cheaper then Red Hat Linux?
Isn’t Solaris x86 already cheaper then Red Hat Linux?
In fact it is without April Jokes… Solaris gives you more for your money and needs less support… and is therefor cheaper.
Red Hat provides more “image” to some and that will cost you… Linux image costs, Sun low profile produces….
No, they are not. As long as the company is providing unlimited upgrades to your software its very good, like cPanel pricing. Very good. I do urge that there should be other options like a full purchase price and limited free version
No, they are not. As long as the company is providing unlimited upgrades to your software its very good, like cPanel pricing. Very good. I do urge that there should be other options like a full purchase price and limited free version
Yeap, that is how it goes, you pay a subscription and they’ll keep forwarding you the latest updates and upgrades. If Solaris 10 is as great as it sounds and JDS is made available for Solaris (with the download of StarOffice 7), I would be quite happy to pay a small fee each year of around US$100.