Sun Microsystems

Connection to Virtualization

Long a leading advocate of “thin client” computing, largely as a way for Sun to compete against Microsoft’s greater strength on the desktop, Sun is a natural to back virtual servers. It has built virtualization into its servers and supported VMware and other virtualization vendors without making a point (as it often did in the past) of trash-talking Microsoft to polarize a competition in which both are chasing relative upstart VMware.

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Why It’s Significant

As the leading (debatably the only) pure Unix vendor among major industry players, Sun is in a position even more clearly neutral than Novell, and is taking advantage of it. It has supported VMware almost from the beginning and has sold its Solaris operating systems with both hypervisors and virtualization-management products. It has also built a significant integration-and-support business to help end users migrate.

Key Products

• Sun xVM
• Sun xVM Ops Center management software
• Sun xVM Server hypervisor

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