Is Sun subverting Linux from the inside?

But Neil Ward-Dutton, director of Ovum's technology practice, believes that the company is sending out mixed messages.

"On the one hand, Sun is talking about how advanced Solaris 10 is, but then it gives it away," he says. "It's a double-edged sword and you can see it in two ways -- that it's giving away fantastic stuff or that it's desperate because it's giving away fantastic stuff."

The situation has not been helped by the fact that "Sun's overall marketing has been so confused over the last two to three years" and its financial results have been "mediocre".

Butler agrees. "People are nervous about doing business with Sun and they debate its corporate longevity, but we spend a lot of time reassuring them that there's no need. Sun is still financially viable and well managed and, while there's a degree of risk with the strategy it has in place, we don't think it's wrong given Sun's situation in the market," he says.

Nonetheless, open source is not for everyone, and as Butler points out, many organisations simply mistrust it as a business and development model, preferring to stay with proprietary operating systems.

This means "it's pretty important that, when Sun manages to profile these companies, it plays down the open source element and says that 'Solaris still belongs to us. We control how it's improved and are remaining firmly in control of where Solaris will go.' Sun will try not to rock the boat here," Butler says.

As a result, those customers with the majority of their IT infrastructure based on Solaris-on-Sparc are likely to remain loyal because "you have to be very frustrated with a vendor to kick it out and Sun hasn't done enough to be thrown out of accounts".

While Butler acknowledges that big Sun users are "looking at the situation with some concern," his advice is to "undertake investment with your eyes open and be cautious of x86 until it's proven that there's no risk". Nonetheless, he expects the "vast majority" of Solaris-on-x86 sales to be generated within the supplier's existing installed base.

On the flip side, however, Butler does not believe that the move to open source Solaris will win Sun many new customers. "For those that have been doing business with IBM and HP for 20 years, but have had a shorter relationship with Sun, they'll look at the relative risks and are likely to say that doing business with IBM looks easier. They're not going to kick Sun out, but they're less likely to make a new business investment," he says.