– Over the last 12 years Sun Microsystems Inc’s Unix operating system has had less modification at the kernel and network protocol level than in the areas of performance and quality, according to director of product marketing Brian Croll. He said that while the kernel and networking components have remained relatively static as far as capability in the OS. What’s happened is it’s gotten better, higher quality, faster. The operating system product, and product line, has evolved.
– Asked why Sun had chooses to refer to most recent release of its operating system as Web-enhanced Solaris 2.6, Croll said it wasn’t because there is some version of Solaris 2.6 that is web- enabled versus some version that was not. It’s because the public likes to hear web… and have a very positive view of the term ‘web,’ and we wanted to connect to it.
– In one part of Croll’s testimony that Microsoft Corp designated be shown, it was revealed that Sun had plans to integrate a browser – Netscape Navigator – into Solaris as far back as June 1995. Sun shipped the HotJava browser with its Solaris 2.6 release. HotJava browser technology is used to install the operating system. Users can get Netscape by filling out and returning a coupon that comes with Solaris. Croll said he’d like to charge for HotJava if he could as it costs money to give away HotJava with Solaris. However, he said that the value of this type of product – a browser – in the market place is zero.
