Oracle killing Sun?

daz · 16 Apr 2010 at 10:41

Looks like it's started.

Removing the 'patches only' paid support for Solaris, as well introducing a 90 day usage trial for Solaris...

I thought people were scaremongering and being overly dramatic before. This slow strangling of a great product will limit uptake at the low end of the market and force Solaris to become even more niche than it is now. No doubt development will grind to a halt... There's talk of OpenSolaris being forked, but unless the development is taken up by a serious group I can't see it working long term.

Narj · 16 Apr 2010 at 11:04

I really like working with Solaris, it's an excellent OS. I think cost considerations have pushed a lot of companies to consider Linux on Intel/AMD anyhow in recent years but this might just accellerate the move further except where absolute mission-critical stability is a requirement (Solaris on Sun hardware is the most rock solid I've ever worked with).

randal · 16 Apr 2010 at 11:10

All the Sun premises around the country I've seen have been rebranded, it's almost as if they're killing Sun entirely.

Sun's model worked best when they owned the hardware architecture, the software development and the OS. Ever since they started looking at x86 and changing the support model on the OS (circa 5 years ago) things have started to slip a bit.

Agree with you PianoBasher, Solaris 9 on Sparc hardware is absolutely solid. My first introduction to UNIX was Solaris 8 on a 220R, superb and made me fall in love with UNIX. It'll be a sad day if it disappears from computer rooms, HPUX just isn't the same...

daz · 16 Apr 2010 at 11:14

I think the important thing for Oracle is to lay out a road map for what they intend to do - let people know their plans because otherwise the Sun products will end up in limbo. Nobody knows how long they will be supported for (as well as new features developed for) in their current form, so it's a difficult choice to make to invest in an Oracle/Sun solution when you have a much more guaranteed future with another vendor.

Narj · 16 Apr 2010 at 11:23

randal24 said:
Agree with you PianoBasher, Solaris 9 on Sparc hardware is absolutely solid. My first introduction to UNIX was Solaris 8 on a 220R, superb and made me fall in love with UNIX. It'll be a sad day if it disappears from computer rooms, HPUX just isn't the same...

Wasn't a fan of 9 tbh, 8 was my thing, and I really like 10 now.

SunOS before Solaris 7 makes me shudder

itno · 16 Apr 2010 at 22:23

Another problem for Oracle is that James Gosling who developed the Java Programming Language has left Sun for pastures new, Google perhaps? As daz points out, without clear direction developers may flock to Microsoft as the platform of choice making the investment by Oracle in Sun Microsystems a bit of a pointless waste of money.

m_cozzy · 17 Apr 2010 at 11:27

Killing the server hardware also. You can no longer even download drivers/ bios updates without a support contract. Utterly disgraceful.

Yamahahahahaha · 17 Apr 2010 at 12:05

This tends to happen with all big mergers and acquisitions.

Someone gets an itchy chequebook, buys a company, then completely guts the thing they spent billions on.

Sun provide(d) a lot of value and innovation, Oracle obviously don't appreciate what they bought.

Camoe · 18 Apr 2010 at 00:18

i knew this ages ago i have a friend who is feeling the rath of oricle

bluebox · 18 Apr 2010 at 09:28

I left Sun just before Oracle took over and there was one question I asked that never got answered and as far as I can tell still hasn't.
Are Oracle staying in the general server market or are they looking to only sell servers as part of an Oracle appliance?

itno · 18 Apr 2010 at 11:06

bluebox said:
I left Sun just before Oracle took over and there was one question I asked that never got answered and as far as I can tell still hasn't.
Are Oracle staying in the general server market or are they looking to only sell servers as part of an Oracle appliance?

I've wondered this as Oracle tend to want to sell a complete hardware/software solution where acquiring Sun would allow them to do this. However, do know if they'll be able to compete against the likes of Dell and HP in terms of hardware.

Also wonder about MySQL given that Sun acquired the software a year or so ago and there was some outcry from users/developers that Sun may close the source and integrate more with Java like they did with Star Office. Maybe Oracle will want to quitely shelve MySQL, particularly the Enterprise version of MySQL, in favour of the Oracle DB.