SunSoft launches its Solaris bundle of SunOS and utilities, promises Intel version…

As expected, (CI Nos 1,750, 1,732), Sun Microsystems Inc’s SunSoft subsidiary yesterday revealed Solaris, its shrink-wrapped bundle of distributed Unix System V.4 operating system software, interface, windowing, networking, object-oriented and multi-media development tools, at its Catalyst Developers Conference in San Jose, California. Version 1 of Solaris, which includes Sun’s existing SunOS 4.1.1 operating system plus the Open Windows environment and version 2 of the object-oriented DeskSet toolset is available now for Sparc systems on CD-ROM and costs $1,400 in workstation configurations – $800 for laptops. However, it is version 2 of Solaris that the Sun user – and Sparc-compatible – community has really been waiting for. To be priced by the resellers, it’s due to be out by the middle of next year, with developer versions available now and early access releases promised for the first quarter of 1992. In addition, for the first time, Sun’s proprietary Sparc operating system environment will be offered on other vendors’ Intel Corp 80386 and 80486 systems. SunSoft’s director of business development Allan Snell, said that the firm would be happy to consider doing a version of Solaris to any volume system, including the MIPS Computer Systems Inc R series RISC and IBM Corp’s RS/6000 Rios RISC.

…and AST Research, Dell and Intel itself sign up to market it

SunSoft has signed up AST Research Inc, CompuAdd Corp, Dell Computer Corp, Intel Corp, Novell Inc, Opus Systems Inc, Solbourne Computer Corp, Star Technologies Inc, Tatung Science & Technology Inc, and Toshiba Corp – as well as its Sun Microsystems Computer Corp relative and ASCII Corp in Japan – to distribute Solaris 2.0 on their personal computers or on their Sparc-based systems.

Solaris includes multiprocessing but SunSoft can’t do generic Sparc version

Solaris 2.0 includes Sun’s multi-processing, multi-threaded re-write of Unix System Laboratories Inc’s Unix System V.4 dubbed SunOS 5.0 – the Open Network Computing networking environment, Open Windows version 3, the Open Look, NeWS and XView graphical user interface toolkits, the object-oriented ToolTalk application integration facility, DeskSet – a suite of 15 workgroup and multi-media applications – and a range of migration tools to allow Solaris 1.0 or SunOS 4.1.1 users to move up to Solaris 2.0. However there is no one generic version of Solaris for the the Sparc. Confirming the incompatibility issues to which Sparc detractors have often alluded, SunSoft is having to develop separate implementations for the range of Sparc CPUs on offer from likes of Fujitsu Ltd and Tera Microsystems Inc.

Solaris 2.0 is step on the road to Distributed Objects Everywhere plan

Solaris 2.0 is the first step in what SunSoft is calling Project DOE: Distributed Objects Everywhere – more will be revealed later this year. The Distributed Object Management Facility DOMF – object-oriented technology that Sun is developing in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard will be contained in future releases of Solaris, beginning with version 2.1. This is the stuff that Sun and Hewlett-Packard Co have submitted to the Object Management Group as the basis of its Object Request Broker. The Object Group subsequently told Sun and Hewlett-Packard to work to integrate their Distributed Object Manager technology with the other solutions submitted by the likes of NCR Corp, Object Design Inc, Digital Equipment Corp and HyperDesk Inc. It is unclear whether Sun will include technology from these other suppliers in the object-oriented components of Solaris, more likely it will be compatible with what the Group eventually comes up with. SunSoft says it will contribute to the implementation of Unix Lab’s Atlas distributed computing environment, though the company was not able to confirm how this will pan out, or how it will relate to planned distributed functionality in Solaris.

Multiprocessing Unix – but still no multiprocessors from Sun itself

The irony of the So

laris announcement is that although Sun has now completed half of the equation – multiprocessing operating system software – it still has nothing to run the stuff on, re-affirming suspicions that the firm has run into serious problems in developing a multiprocessing computer. And, now that Sun Microsystems Inc has devolved itself into Sun Microsystems Computer Corp, SunSoft Inc, Sun Technology Enterprises and Sun Laboratories – effectively islands of information in the same building – SunSoft’s Allan Snell said he was not able to comment on what other parts of the Sun organisation are doing. He was also unable to confirm on which system the multiprocessing and multi-threaded features had been tested, other than on the Sparcstation 1 – a uniprocessor Sparc box. For other core Unix technologies – C++, Fortran, Cobol, Ada and Pascal compilers as well as add-on products like an MS-DOS emulator, you have to go down the corridor to Sun Technology Enterprises and strike a deal.

…as SunSoft gets ICL to host its announcement in the UK

In a move perhaps to try and distance itself from its parent company – and the rest of the Sun siblings, in the UK, the Solaris announcement was hosted by ICL Plc, which has also signed a technology agreement with SunSoft. The two say they will work together to ensure that applications developed for Solaris, or for ICL’s Unix System V.4-based DRS/NX environment, can run across both company’s Sparc-based systems. Although ICL did the original reference implementation of System V.4 for the Sparc RISC, at present applications that run on Sun Sparc systems are incompatible with those that run on the ICL Sparc boxes. ICL and SunSoft say they will integrate system-level source code and develop and market unspecified system software products based on ICL technology. However ICL will not be selling Solaris on its Sparc systems, although may do so on its Intel Corp systems that it buys OEM, if customers ask for it. ICL also plans new models in its multiprocessing DRS 6000 range of Sparc systems early next year. The current two-CPU limit is set to rise, along with the 33MHz clock rates of the Sparc chips that it uses it its line. – William Fellows