Apples at Sun

Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer have a long history together. Sun considered buying Apple in the mid-1990s, the companies also nearly merged on two other occasions, as well as almost co-operating on a number of technical projects, according to Bill Joy, one of Sun’s founders. Both companies have always been the maverick of their markets, relying on quality products and innovation over the power of mass marketing.

The Sun of 2008 is much more than the Unix workstation and server company of the mid 90s, with a product range that encompasses everything from the Java programming language, to business integration software, thin client technology and x64 servers. Solaris, Sun’s Unix operating system, is the platform of choice for telcos, banks and business customers around the world.
Gil Amelio was in charge at Apple when Sun looked at buying the company in 1996. With Steve Jobs back we’ve all seen Apple’s star rise again – the iPod, the move to OS X, the move to Intel, etc. Shuffle readers are well aware of what our favourite consumer tech company has achieved.

In recent years, co-operation between Sun and Apple has continued. Apple have integrated Sun’s open source Dtrace code into OS X. Dtrace helps programmers diagnose performance bottlenecks in their code. Apple have also integrated Sun’s open source 128bit ZFS file system into OS X server. ZFS allows for TBs of storage to be easily managed across multiple drives with no single point of failure.
How else are Sun and Apple co-operating? The clue lies in the MacBook I’m using to write this article. For years, particularly since the advent of the Unix based OS X, Sun engineers have preferred Macs over the Windows or Linux alternative. Non-travelling employees use a Sun Ray thin client to access a Solaris desktop. Company issued laptops, however, have always been Toshibas. Over the last few months however, Macs have been added as an option.
Every Sun office I visit these days has employees poring over their shiny new Macs. Internal aliases have been set up for Mac newbies – most new owners at Sun are using a Mac for the first time in many years, myself included. We’re also finding ourselves buying other Apple products for our own personal use as well.

Who knows what might have happened had the mergers gone ahead? Either way, thanks to Sun, I’ve been able to switch. What if I get fed up with OS X? Well, I can always put OpenSolaris on this lovely Apple branded piece of hardware.

by Christopher Saul

Christopher Saul lives in Dubai and works for Sun Microsystems, selling thin client desktop solutions across Sun’s Southern and Eastern EMEA region. You can follow Chrisopher’s adventures at http://blogs.sun.com/christophersaul/.

Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Shufflegazine.