Lets analyze this argument a bit (and since I'm feeling controversial, damn the torpedoes Capp'n)
In the report "Linux -- The Dark Side of Sun," Giga Information Group, Cambridge, Mass., said the open-source operating system on Intel Corp. (stock: INCT) chips is eroding sales of low-end and midrange Sun servers running Solaris, Sun's Unix-based operating system.
So what. The money is not at the low end, it's at the high end. Yes, I know that in the desktop marketplace whoever took the low end eventually ended up taking the high end, but server's don't sell that way.
Giga analyst and report author Stacey Quandt said Sun, (stock: SUNW), Palo Alto, Calif., which reported record earnings last quarter and is currently riding high on the Internet wave, would hurt itself financially in the long-term by failing to recognize Linux as a threat and not supporting the operating system in Sun servers.
AFAIK Sun have a linux compatibility shim that lets you run Linux applications under Solaris (on Intel of course, since Linux is not instruction set neutral). Linux is not a threat, its an opportunity. So they already have 'linux on Solaris'. Big deal. Nobody buys Intel servers to run Solaris, they never have, and until Sun builds and integrates multiprocessor server hardware based on Intel chips, they won't (i.e. never).
"I believe they'll have to cannibalize their low end and offer a Linux solution in order to be competitive in the market," Quandt said Tuesday. "And whether that solution is on Sparc or Intel is obviously a moot issue. But I think they have to have a Linux strategy."
Utter drivel. So Sun should take Linux, beef it up to give it the same robustness and scalability as Solaris, do it all on an Intel chipset, and then give it all back under the GPL. What a waste of time.
I'd like to bet this is the same analysis group that was crying 'Sun is Dead because NT is killing them'.
Linux is a nice cheap way for cheapskate dot.com's to get their first server up to show to the Venture Capitalists, but as soon as they get their funding they turn around and buy a real machine, and lots of them. IMO Linux sells Solaris. But I'm not an anal-lyst. And of course I'm wrong more often than I'm right. But I invested in SUNW in 1997, just after their huge run up with the first wave of the Internet build-out. Hahahahah!
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