Interview: Sun to focus on cost reduction at LinuxWorld

See editor's note below

Sun Microsystems, long a hard-line Unix vendor, is becoming a player in the Linux market as well, offering Linux on both the server and desktop. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill recently discussed Sun's Linux strategy with Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of the software group at Sun, and Schwartz highlighted the ways in which Sun differs from rivals IBM and HP.

InfoWorld: What will you be announcing at LinuxWorld next week?

Schwartz: You're going to see us focus on cost reduction. The competition hires a lot of evangelists to talk about how great Linux is, and then [puts forth] a middleware strategy that locks you into a single vendor and gives you the same problem, just one layer removed from the chip set.

InfoWorld: Can you be specific about how you're going to focus on cost reduction?

Schwartz: My view on the outside is that [IBM CEO] Sam Palmisano is beginning to look at little like [former IBM CEO] John Akers. John Akers bragged about how great IBM's PC strategy was and, oh yes, you just need to go get an OS from this little company up in Redmond. That company ended up being more valuable than IBM. Right now, Sam spends a lot of time bragging about how great Linux is. I don't know if you've noticed Red Hat's market cap, but Sam is creating a dependency on another company that is as directed as his original dependency that he inherited from Akers. IBM is telling the world Linux is wonderful, and what they're doing is they're creating Red Hat. I think that's creating a real problem for IBM, because at this point Red Hat has more power than IBM does.  With Red Hat's acquisition of Sistina and with Red Hat's acquisition of ObjectWeb, they are now in competition with Veritas and IBM. Where does IBM go?  Because they, like HP, were foolish enough to believe that you could leave your operating system behind and just go pick one up from someone else.

[Editor's note: Red Hat joined the ObjectWeb Consortium. It did not acquire ObjectWeb.]

InfoWorld: What is Sun's Linux strategy on the desktop and on the server?

Schwartz: Let me start [with] the desktop. Unlike our peers in the industry who use Linux in their press releases and hire lots of evangelists and maybe run some ads and use the word Linux in it, we believe the best way to demonstrate commitment to the Linux community and to demonstrate a credible strategy to the marketplace is to build products using Linux and ship them to customers. Our Linux strategy on the desktop is called the Java Desktop System, and at this point we are the undisputed leader in the desktop space, using both Java and Linux and StarOffice and Mozilla. We see that business growing very aggressively as customers look for a more secure and more affordable solution to their desktop computing needs. We will ship that desktop not simply on Linux, we will also ship it on Solaris and give customers the choice.