Will Sun Take The Linux Plunge?

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January 30, 2001 (9:06 AM EST)

For Linux, the next frontier is the enterprise.

And while it has many powerful backers in that market -- from IBM and Hewlett-Packard to Dell and Computer Associates -- one big question mark remains: Sun Microsystems.

The server powerhouse has been ambiguous and ambivalent about Linux, observers said. To date, Sun has pledged to support the GNOME graphical user interface and released StarOffice code to the masses, and so on. People can even download some distributions of Linux for UltraSPARC from its website. Sun, however, has stopped short of making Linux available on its machines.

But now that the new Linux 2.4 kernel is expected to scale up the operating system to support higher levels of multiprocessing, observers said, Sun needs to better outline its Linux stance.

Many pundits expect Sun (stock: SUNW) to try to clear up any doubts about its Linux game plan this week at LinuxWorld Expo. The company will show off kiosks based on the Java framework and highlight the fact that JDK 1.3's Hotspot compiler now supports Windows, Solaris, and Linux on equal footing, said Herb Hinstorff, manager of Sun's Linux Program Office.

"Our committment to Linux is wide and deep. The issue is that right now Linux is seeing volume on Intel and we have no Intel platform," Hinstorff noted.

Sun, Palo Alto, Calif., is a founding member of the GNOME Foundation and will make GNOME 2.0 graphical interface available as the Solaris desktop replacing CDE, said spokesman Brett Smith. Sun also formed OpenOffice.org, which has seen thousands of contributions. That code will be the basis of StarOffice 6, Smith said.

Still, outsiders say Sun's support is understandably much less obvious than that of other companies. "On the one hand, Linux plays into Sun's open-systems perspective. On the other hand, it isn't Solaris, Sun's cash cow, so that puts them in an awkward position," said Judith Hurwitz, president of The Hurwitz Group, Framingham, Mass., a research firm.

Sun, unlike many other tech heavyweights, is not a member of the Open Source Development Laboratory, which is dedicated to making Linux applications more scalable to high-end multiprocessing machines. Sun has said it was not invited to join but Hinstorff said the company would consider an invitation were it offered. Now, with the 2.4 kernel, Linux will scale better to four- and eight-processor machines. (The various Unix flavors like HP-UX , Solaris, and AIX, scale to more processors still.)

The bottom line is that Sun "has much more to lose to Linux than the other Unix vendors," said Al Gillen system software analyst for IDC, Framingham, Mass. Unlike Sun, IBM (stock: IBM) and HP (stock: HWP) -- both of which field their own Unix flavors -- are fully aboard the Linux bandwagon, apparently assuming it's better to lose business to themselves than to outsiders.

Gillen's colleague, Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of system software research, at IDC agreed. "If you did a survey of what's installed, 93 to 97 percent of Linux is installed on Intel machines, and the rest is evenly split among the RISC architectures--that probably hasn't encouraged the Sun hardware folks," he noted. Unlike IBM and HP, however, Sun is the leading holder of market share in Unix so it has more to protect and more to lose, Gillen said.

Sun realizes that the perception of its mixed Linux message is hurtful, analysts said. "The company is concerned about the fact they've been positioned as not necessarily Linux-friendly and will point out the stuff they're doing, including StarOffice," Gillen said.

There is another major factor weighing on Sun's decision to embrace or not embrace Linux. "Sun is nothing if not a pragmatic company, and Linux is a platform that Microsoft is not wild about, so I'd bet Sun will make accommodations," said Hurwitz.

Also at the show this week, there will be a lot of talk about making Linux a better corporate citizen. Even ardent open-sourcers agree that some things about development have to change as Linux and open source make their way into the enterprise.

"We can't do it like we did with Apache. With Apache [the open-source Web server] people were deploying it, running their businesses on it, depending on it before it was tested," said Bruce Perens, an open-source advocate who is now an open-source strategist for HP, Palo Alto, Calif.

Interoperability will be a big deal with Linux going forward, others said. "You'll hear a lot about what's going to happen to make Linux, Unix, and other operating environments work together better," Gillen said. "It's a natural progression for Linux to find its place in corporate America but in order to do that it's got to be interoperable with what's there already."

Show keynoters will include IBM president and chief operating officer Sam Palmisano; Intel vice president and chief technical officer Pat Gelsinger; VA Linux Systems founder and CEO Larry Augustin; and SuSE Linux AG chief technology officer Dirk Hohndel.

Also at the show, Intel rival AMD will talk more about its SimNow! simulator that will let developers test their X86-64-based code in advance of the company's shipment of its 64-bit processors.