Dell: No Solaris until it's a standard

BOSTON--Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system now runs on x86 servers such as those Dell sells, but the company will consider adding support for the Unix version only if it becomes a standard part of the computing landscape.

That's the conclusion of Judy Chavis, director of business development for Dell's enterprise product group, who spoke in an interview at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here.

"Is it the next industry standard around operating systems? That's what it would take for us to do that," she said. So far, the answer is a definitive no. "Since the year started, I haven't had a Solaris x86 customer come into the briefing center," Chavis said.

Dell evaluated Unix years ago, including Solaris, but eventually chose to stick with Linux. In the intervening years, Sun nearly killed off its x86 version of Solaris but now puts it front and center of its push to make a name for itself in the x86 server market.

"There have been a couple bumps in the road with Solaris. It's going to take customers awhile to believe it's here on the x86 platform and it's going to stay," Chavis said.