Gizmodo: sun microsystems

Why Did Apple Drop ZFS From Snow Leopard?

Rosa Golijan — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:20:00 EDT

In 2008, Apple announced that we would see ZFS as part of Snow Leopard Server, but a year later our copies are shipping with ZFS nowhere to be found. What went wrong? And will we ever get ZFS?

Robin Harris, who has worked in the data storage field for as long as I've been alive, is discussing the mysterious absence of ZFS in Mac OS 10.6 over at his blog StorageMojo. He reconsiders his original stance, that there were migration or integration timeline issues, in favor of it being a battle between licensing preferences.

Harris speculates that Sun Microsystems, the folks behind ZFS, may have pushed for a Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) and patent indemnification which turned Apple off the deal. Harris emphasizes that the incompatibility between CDDL and GPL was one of the issues for Apple, but certainly not the only one. (How could it be when there are CDDL elements such as DTrace in Snow Leopard already?)

Patent indemnification could play a larger role as the manner in which Sun might waive patent claims against Apple for the use of ZFS wouldn't actually truly protect Apple from third-party claims, but that too is speculation.

What we do know is that Apple promised us ZFS a year ago and didn't put out this month. Be it a lovers' spat with Sun, licensing issues, or a larger legal picture, we're still optimistic that we'll see ZFS down the road, particularly with the changes going on as part of Sun being taken over by Oracle.

Check out Harris' thoughts and tell us yours. Why did Apple go back on something they were so proud to announce? And when will this broken promise be made up to us? [Storage mojo]

Game Over for Sun's "Game Changing" 16-Core Rock CPU

Sean Fallon — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:55:00 EDT

In the wake of their buyout by Oracle, Sun Microsystems has canned their 16-core Rock chip project—once touted by the company as a "game changer," and their answer to IBM's latest Power CPUs—after five years of development. This represents the second major chip offering from Sun to be shelved in recent years. [NYT]

Why Oracle Bought Sun Microsystems for $7.4 Billion

matt buchanan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:59:00 EDT

Why did Oracle pay $7.4 billion for Sun Microsystems after the IBM pulled out before pulling the trigger? Two things says Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: Java and the Solaris operating system. [Computerworld]

Nearly Official: $7 Billion Sun Swallowed By IBM

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:39:00 EDT

We mentioned the rumor before, but NYT is now reporting an all-but-done deal: IBM will buy Sun Microsystems, and all its succulent intellectual property, for just under $7 billion. [NYT]

Sun Storing The Entire Internet In a Shipping Container

Sean Fallon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:20:00 EDT

How do you store three petabytes (that's 3,145,728 GB) of web pages for the Internet Archive? You put them in a datacenter housed in a shipping container.

Each container packs in 60 of the company's Sun Fire X4500 Open Storage Systems and is constantly monitored for potential threats. It's actually a pretty elegant, modular solution to an archive that grows by nearly 100TBs every month. So rest assured folks, your precious GeoCities page from the 90's is safe and secure. [Sun via GigaOM via Slashgear]

Java Phone: Sun Microsystems and Samsung May Be Developing Cheaper iPhone Alternative

Sean Fallon — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:10:25 EDT

Rumor has it that Sun Microsystems and Samsung are jointly developing a "Java Phone" that is cheaper and more feature rich than Apple's iPhone. Details are scarce, but a Samsung spokesperson confirmed that a meeting has taken place between the two companies regarding the phone, but the details of that conversation have not been made public. Rumors are rumors, but if true, it would take a lot of convincing to prove that a Java UI could come anywhere near Apple in terms of execution. That having been said, could JavaFX be involved? [iht via Justamp]

Sun's JavaFX Hopes to Give Cellphones an Extra Kick

Louis Ramirez — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:08:19 EDT

Sun Microsystems has its eyes on the iPhone, and in order to beat it has announced a new cellphone technology dubbed JavaFX. The new software is essentially a mobile version of Java meant to provide cellphones with a clean, streamlined interface. The phone on the right is an example of what a cellphone with JavaFX would look like interface-wise. Pretty snazzy if you ask me. No other details have been announced yet, but the software is expected to make its debut today at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco. – Louis Ramirez

Here Comes the Sun Conference [SF Gate]

Sun T1 Chip To Use Less Electricity

tgrumet — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 06:13:00 EST

Sun Microsystems has decided to come into the ring swinging with its latest microprocessor called the UltraSparc T1. Codenamed Niagara (boy, that's ominous huh?), the chip uses around 70 watts of electricity, which is at least 30 percent less than most other microprocessors. It consists of eight processing cores on just one piece of silicon will be the centerpiece of Sun's upcoming line of servers called Sun Fire (expect these by end of year). And the chip will also be the brain's behind Sun's Solaris version of Unix. This is all part of Sun's master plan to turn up profits. Their revenue declined during the burst of the Dot-Com bubble in 2000, which is when IBM and HP greedily took over the Number 1 and 2 positions for servers.

To respond, Sun has revamped its products to reflect an industry shift to lower-cost computer servers, namely those using Intel Corp.-compatible chips made by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research), and is moving to a more subscription-based model for selling its hardware, computer services and business software.

Sun is hoping that their lower use of electricity (which is closer to a light bulb) will help sell the chip and boost the company's image.

Sun announces new T1 chip; key to turnaround [Reuters]