Sun Microsystems Inc. is expected to unveil a collection of new products and services at the companys quarterly systems release event tomorrow in New York. At the top of the bill is Solaris 10, the latest version of Suns Unix System V-based operating system.
The event, which will be Webcast, will play on Suns ties to Wall Street. One hundred of Suns financial services customers and partners will be on hand at the W Hotel Union Square for the event. Sun executives are expected to highlight the companys latest developments in high-performance and utility computing technologies, and how they apply to the financial services industry—a market that was key to Suns success in the early 1980s.
“The cornerstone of our announcements is the enhancement of the Solaris Operating System,” said Sun spokesperson Kathy Engle in an e-mail to eWEEK.com. “By pairing the industry-leading standards of [Advanced Micro Devices Inc.], Intel [Corp.] and Suns SPARC architecture with both Solaris 10 and Linux, Sun is bringing exceptional competitive advantage and choice to Wall Street.”
Sun executives will focus on the application of Solaris and its AMD Opteron-based Sun Fire servers to the high-availability computing needs of the financial industry, particularly as an alternative to Linux-based systems. Linux is making major gains in the financial services market, and mostly at Suns expense: The Tower Group reported earlier this year that it expects Linux deployments in the securities industry to grow at an annual rate of 22 percent between 2003 and 2006.
The company is also expected to discuss more details of its plans to open-source the Solaris operating system. Sun Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz in June announced that Sun intended to open-source the operating system at the SunNetwork Conference in Shanghai, China. At an internal summit last week, Sun rolled forward its efforts to open-source the operating system, launching a beta program for the developer community.
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