Our spies think the best guess for general availability of Solaris-on-iAPX-86 is May. They say what they’re seeing from SunSoft Inc right now is a very commercially packaged product that looks to be pretty much a full-blown release but lacks personal computer compatibility or the ability to run Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unix software because of the extensions. It will however run Interactive and 386 System V.3 software. It apparently includes compilers, but hardware support is slim and they’d like better graphics. Despite rough edges, it seems to have everything in it that Solaris 2.1 has and performs at the Sparcstation 2 level. But those that want to sell Solaris-on-Intel are going to have to be reauthorised. SunSoft is planning on releasing details of the programme that it’s putting together at its developers’ conference later this month. It will probably be in two levels like SunSoft’s Interactive sales strategy. To qualify you’ll likely have to show experience, solvency and added-value, sign up for training and promise not to disgrace the family.
