Interesting topic, pulled from hijacked thread: http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=134699&tstart=0
I have used Sun "workstations" (anyone remember when that used to mean something different than a "PC"?) since my Sun SPARC Station 1. I have since used a couple of Ultra 10s (w/ LSI SCSI!) and a Sun Blade 100. Now I am kind of up-a-creek re my library of SPARC-based code. Should Oracle again offer a workstation, of some sort, for the application library of 13,000 applications (at one point, if my ancient wet-RAM is working)? Could (SPARC) servers be effectively used as work-group workstations? By this I mean a moderately powerful work-group server with multiple frame-buffers, connected to monitors and keyboards on 1 meter to 10 meter multi-cables. Does CAD any longer make sense on a SPARC, given current SPARC MHz and floating-point deficits? Does the increased security (possible) re Solaris (even base OS, much less sophisticated ACLs and Trusted Extensions) still make sense for higher-security environments such as military tactical operations centers (TOCs)? Is there such a thing as a current or future CAD-capable SunRay? Does it make productivity sense for battle-staff to use a "convenient" Microsoft lap-top for a year in a combat area of operations? Could Oracle profitably make an arrangement with another vendor (Steve is a "friend" of Larry, but probably not Apple in their increasingly walled garden) to provide an Oracle-branded high-performance workstation running Solaris? This would be more than simply certifying Solaris on third-party hardware for compatibility (who else builds SPARC, even if SPARC is "open"), but less than designing and building an in-house solution. If so, is X64/X86 the only way to go, not SPARC? Moving away from chassis and CPU's, is the technology and marketing center-of-gravity for "workstations" becoming the graphics-processing unit (GPU), no longer just a frame buffer? Does Oracle's move away from High-Performance Computing (HPC) bode ill for bust-a-nut graphics? Back to the work-group workstation concept, in the '00's certain third-parties offered frame-buffers with individual on-board serial ports to keyboards (I still have literature). SunRays are not X-terminals, but the client-server concept may still have some legs, splitting and optimally distributing display, computation, and database. With fiber, and 10GbE etc., the limitation may not be the server to terminal cable. Others have done remoted card-based PCs. Sort-of did Sun with their Sun-pci Intel co-processor cards. (Interestingly, the Sun-pci II had its own ESDI controller, with no socket installed.) Could Oracle Sun cooperate with a graphics vendor to make work-group workstations happen? Bottom line, for many inscrutable reasons, I would like to remain on SPARC running Solaris for my evolving future workstation needs. How to do that? And how to convince Oracle management that the old-style premium technical workstation market might still be a viable and profitable element of their business at some relatively marginal cost? That Solaris is good for more than just a database, even one with a magnificently elegant and varied ecosystem? It would seem it might be unprofitable for Oracle to throw-away virtually all technical/end-user Solaris SPARC applications. But without a "workstation", or even a thousand-dollar-a year Solaris license on X64/X-86 hardware, how can users run them? Exactly who can one call at Oracle? Thoughts? Thanks? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ desktop-discuss mailing list desktop-discuss@opensolaris.org
