Another big question mark once Solaris is released to the open-source community is how rival vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM -- which have all committed big time to Linux -- will embrace the OS.
With usual jocularity, Schwartz Tuesday predicted that vendors such as HP would be "eager" to license open-source Solaris and offer an entire line of new hardware based on Sun's OS. Then he got serious and said he was "optimistic" that support for open-source Solaris would come from Sun's largest hardware competitors.
Sun recently made Solaris available on x86-based servers from HP, Dell and IBM, but executives were hesitant to discuss the traction Solaris is seeing so far on servers other than those from Sun.
Sun has Solaris co-selling agreements with a host of smaller hardware vendors, such as Rackable Systems and "four of the five vendors by volume in China," said Weinberg. Dell, HP and IBM have not signed such agreements, however, although HP will support Solaris on its hardware.
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