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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dealer who wrote (51878)	5/22/2002 1:04:16 AM
From: Dealer	Respond to of 65232

SUNW--Sun releases major software upgrade By Peter Henderson SAN FRANCISCO, May 22 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc.(NasdaqNM:SUNW - News) debuted on Wednesday its biggest software upgrade in years, a new version of its flagship Solaris operating systems, which the computer maker is trying to integrate with popular upstart Linux. ADVERTISEMENT Aiming to simplify networks choked by many layers of software, Sun has incorporated security and management features that are usually separate programs into the operating system, the software which sits between applications and the machine, it said. The roughly 300 new features of Solaris version 9 would help networks run with less intervention from administrators, a key to Sun's vision of the future and a potential cost savings for customers. It would also provide most users with a handful of "killer" improvements, said IDC analyst Al Gillen. Sun soared to renown as companies built networks and the Internet using its powerful work stations, but has had a hard time recovering since the economy slowed and the Internet boom collapsed about a year ago. One element of Sun's historic success was its single-minded devotion to Solaris, a Unix-type operating system, but it has sown confusion among analysts recently by promising to come out with a Linux low-end computer expected in July. Linux is a newer but so far less powerful Unix that has captured the hearts of programmers, since it is not owned by a single company and developed collaboratively, and corporations enamored of Linux's price: it is free. Total Linux revenue nearly doubled in the first quarter from a year ago and it is still growing fast, Gartner Inc. server analyst Shahin Khan said. While some critics say Linux will devour the entire Unix market, Sun's operating systems chief, Anil Gadre, says, "Fundamentally Linux and Solaris are two brothers." Both systems compete with Microsoft Corp. Windows and other systems, he said in an interview ahead of the Solaris launch. Sun was developing Linux for network "edge" services, like print serving and mail serving, while Solaris, much more powerful, handled bigger computing tasks, he said. "We are a very practical company at the end of the day," Gadre said. Competitors International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM - News) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - News) have supported Linux for some time. IBM, which released a more modest update of its Unix operating system, AIX, on Wednesday also, claims it is far ahead of Sun in Linux and "middleware" of programs that let programs on a network work together. "They don't have the middleware and they are late on Linux," said Vice President Surjit Chana, head of marketing for the high-end Unix computers for IBM. Technology researcher Bill Claybrook of Aberdeen said that Sun would fall behind quickly if it kept its Linux focused on the low end, since Linux was bound to get more sophisticated. But he did not expect them to do so. "I think that Sun will be relatively aggressive in the Linux area," he said. Sun also plans to make its own distribution version of Linux, giving it more room to incorporate some of the features from Solaris over time, he said. "Of all the companies that are involved in Linux -- there is the new HP, Dell, IBM and now Sun -- they are the only ones that have their own distribution," he said. Linux is maturing slowly, and it won't be able to take on tasks currently done by high-end Unix computers until around the end of the decade, he said. Sun faced a dilemma about what hardware to use for its Linux systems, since selling hardware has been key to Sun's profits, he said. But, he said, "Sun is the Unix company. There is no reason they can't become the Linux company if they want to."