Is Sun subverting Linux from the inside?

Some 95 percent of Sparc processors currently go into machines with less than four CPUs, he attests, but it is just this area of the market that is being dominated by x86 boxes. This means that Sun's moves to promote Solaris on x86 will simply contribute to this trend. Moreover, because Sparc-based machines command higher margins than x86 ones, Sun will have to increase volumes proportionately to avoid overall revenues being eroded.

But because Sun is positioning itself as a Solaris champion and its "preferred gambit is Solaris everywhere regardless of the chip", the end result "will be to marginalise somewhat Sun's recognition as an independent x86 vendor. If you've never bought from Sun before and want a Linux box, why would you go to Sun?" Butler asks.

As a result, the majority of x86 sales are likely to come from "existing customers that know it and have a good reason to buy from it rather than from Dell or IBM that have more open credentials".

This means that, while the open sourcing of Solaris will "help to keep it alive and viable, it won't dramatically improve Sun's fortunes".

But the move also raises question marks over whether the remaining 5 percent of Sparc shipments at the medium to high end will be enough to sustain the life of the processor into the long term.

Sun has already deferred some research and development expense here as a result of cancelling its five-year long UltraSparc V project and allying with Fujitsu, the other major proponent of Sparc and Solaris, to jointly develop high-end servers based on Fujitsu's Sparc64 processors.

But as Butler points out: "Staying in the chip business is not cheap and Sun still has a lot of complex investment ahead, so it needs to keep the cash cow viable. It talks a lot about free Solaris, but there's no such thing as a free OS because someone has to pay to develop it. This means it has to rely on the health of continued demand for Sparc servers as the engine room to fund philanthropic investment."

Goguen refutes the suggestion that the future for Sparc is anything but robust, however, and also denies that an apparent lack of clarity about the positioning of its various offerings may confuse customers.

"It's about choice for customers and developers and now they do have a choice. If they want Solaris, we can do that, if they want access to OpenSolaris code, they can get under the covers, or if they want to use a different OS for different tasks, we can offer them that too," he says.