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Not really. Sun would have survived and thrived if it had thrown its weight behind Solaris x86. Except they did; anyone working in Solaris engineering at that
by binarycrusader 9y ago
Not really. Sun would have survived and thrived if it had thrown its weight behind Solaris x86.
Except they did; anyone working in Solaris engineering at that time or even now could tell you that x86 was just as important as SPARC. From a technological perspective, they are completely equivalent.
For example, the ZFS Storage Appliance is x86-based, not SPARC-based.
- justin66 9y agoFrom the end user point of view, Sun recommitted (and later lessened their commitment) to Solaris x86 support so many times over the years that it's hard to imagine what would convince a user that they were really "throwing their weight behind it." We really mean it this time... wait, where are you going???
- binarycrusader 9y agoThe hardest software to change is in people's heads.
- Annatar 9y agoBut it is true. For a while, AMD based Acer Ferrari laptops were the primary development hardware for Solaris, SPARC or otherwise. It showed up on i86pc first, then it would be built on sparc during the night. SmartOS for example only supports i86pc; there is no sparc port.