Because he has a long and honorable personal history with Sun UNIX (going back before the first Solaris!), The Portable Consultant was pleasantly surprised recently to hear that Sun Microsystems is continuing to learn from the success of Linux.

Smart move, but we hope for Sun’s sake that it is not too little, too late.

Just as there may be a future where MS Windows becomes the Cadillac of Desktop Operating Systems (Cadillac DOS?) in a world where it will share the desktop market with increasingly popular Linux & Mac OS alternatives… there is potential for an open source Sun Solaris to become the Rolls Royce of server and high-end workstation operating systems (RRSWOS?… oh, well) in a world of Linux (ok, and Windows) servers.

Sun and Microsoft have one thing in common… they both need to find ways to keep their cars on the highway as Linux traffic continues to build from the access ramps.

By the way, if you’ve enjoyed playing with Linux and would like to explore Solaris for free, get a free download of Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris and check out Blastwave.org .

-pmh
ps: thanks to Pete K. for the pointer… hope you guys grow Blastwave into a fine business!