Despite its recent financial woes, Sun Microsystems, the world's third largest manufacturer of business computer servers, has managed to return a profit this quarter. Although Sun's revenue rose only marginally, going from $3.83 billion to $3.84 billion, significant expense reductions have managed to put this company into the black. After returning a consecutive five quarters of profit in the previous year, Sun rebounded, posting two consecutive quarters of loss under the leadership of its new CEO, Jonathan Schwartz. Among other moves, Sun has revitalized its product line, offering new servers powered by AMD and Intel processors, as well as laying off 5,000 employees last year. Consequently, Sun's net income jumped to over $329 million in profit in the fourth quarter, compared to a $301 million loss at this same time last year; the company's 9 cents per share earnings beat analysts expectations of only 5 cents per share. Investors apparently appreciated the earnings report as much as Sun, as the stock went up 12% in extended trading, from $4.89 to $5.74.
View: News.com
View: News.com
Their operating system is pretty damn good - Project Indiana will be released in the final version in March 2008 - which will include the ability for people to purchase technical support from Sun. It'll have the latest and greatest features from OpenSolaris build which will be cool.
I'm running SXCE right now; everything apart from the webcam is supported out of the box. I suggest anyone unhappy with their linux experience to give it ago.
SXCE = Solaris Express Community Edition - Released each fortnight - no need to upgrade on *EVER* released; look through the log, if there is a fix or a feature added you might like, then upgrade.
SXDE = Solaris Express Community Edition - Based off SXCE but based on a build which is bug fixing only - released every 4 months. This will be replaced with Indiana in March 2008, and unlike SXDE/SXCE, they come with the option of being able to pay for support, updates etc. just like the mainline Solaris.
I'm running SXCE right now; everything apart from the webcam is supported out of the box. I suggest anyone unhappy with their linux experience to give it ago.
They really have a pretty small Hardware Compatibility List... and most of the newer hardware doesnt work... None of my 965 boards work!! So they need to do some really work on the drivers and stuff...
And for the future... I dont think Solaris is the best architecture... Minix 3 rocks... I think its really coming off age to show how performance doesnt really matter as components are getting faster. Stability is really the requirement now!!
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