ONE up on .Net

AH, THE DELIGHTS of a buyer's market. It's a lousy time to be looking for work, but those few, employed IT planners can salve their pink slip jitters by shopping for bargains. The deals are really stacking up: Macromedia's $900 J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) server, Apache 2.0, Borland's lowball JBuilder edition, KDE 3.0, dirt-cheap RAM, and Microsoft's free .Net compilers make it feel like Christmas in June despite companies' thin wallets.

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Not to be outdone, Sun Microsystems is stepping up with its own basket of goodies. Solaris 9 is loaded with standard enterprise services, reversing a long-standing Sun position against Microsoft's inclusive approach. Directory services, a Web server, messaging middleware, and a J2EE app server will be integral to Solaris 9, just as Active Directory, IIS, Message Queuing, COM+, and .Net are integral to Windows servers. Sun's OS-integrated J2EE and messaging components won't be available until later, but Sun can be forgiven a little vapor marketing (Microsoft has been playing up the features of the not-yet-shipping .Net Server for months).

By bundling enterprise services and an enterprise framework with Solaris 9, Sun cedes the superiority of the Windows model. That's fitting because Windows NT 4.0 was Microsoft's answer to the "everything in one box" Unix tradition in place at the time. Ironically, commercial Unix abandoned inclusive bundling shortly after Microsoft took it up.

So, in a sense, Solaris 9 is a return to Unix's roots, something old timers like me think is overdue. But before you get all misty over Sun's homecoming, check out the strings attached to Solaris' integrated Sun ONE (Open Net Environment) goodies -- in case you wondered, Solaris isn't turning into Linux.

The Solaris 9 directory server is limited to 200,000 entries. Not per server, but enterprisewide. And the directory services are free only in a homogeneous Solaris network. If you replicate your directory to a non-Solaris OS, including Linux, you have to pay for a license.

The integrated J2EE server is built for stand-alone use; it is not licensed for use in a distributed environment without a fee-based upgrade, and Sun won't reveal the cost of the upgrade until summer. Likewise, the integrated Sun ONE Message Queue services are strictly entry level -- if you want clustering or tighter security, it'll cost you.

I'm not faulting Sun for failing to give the store away. When it comes to operating systems, more is better, and Solaris' integrated services will lower acquisition costs for Sparc workstations and single-CPU servers. Windows' "free" services are a come-on for the likes of BizTalk, SharePoint, Commerce Server, and Visual Studio. Solaris 9's freebies are there to lock in customers for the Sun ONE enterprise products due out this year.

That's fine with me; let Sun, Microsoft, and the open-source gang try to out-feature one another. The suitor with the biggest bouquet doesn't always win, but it's nice to be courted again.