Tadpole is running a giveaway of a SPARCLE notebook computer.
Click here for more information and to enter the giveaway.

Just a reminder that the Q4 2003 web event is coming December 3rd at 8 am PST. Be ready with browser and plugins to get a glimpse on whats coming. We’re hoping for some details on the AMD deal, possibly some hard information about the Fujitsu deal, and the roll out of UltraSparcIV. Have your coffee and donuts ready for the fun, and push all your meetings back till noon.

Chris Rijk with Ace’s Hardware has a pair of articles on what’s coming with Solaris 10 in 2004, from software and technical (high productivity computing systems) standpoints.

News about UltraSparc IV is starting to fly around, particularly pairing up the next big proccessors being UltraSparc IV, POWER6 and Opteron. Ars Technica compairs POWER5, UltraSparcIV, and Transmeta’s Efficeon, an older review of UltraSparcIV at Ace’s, and of course you can find information about the new proc directly from Sun.

Illwinter Game Design’s latest strategy title Dominions II: The Ascension Wars, has just been released by Shrapnel Games. This is wargame publisher Shrapnel Games’ first title that has support for Solaris.

More info on this game is available here: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/illwinter/d2

Sun has released Build 44 for both X86 and Sparc of the Solaris9 OE that will become Solaris10.
New features to Build 44 include IPv6 functionality during Solaris installs, IPv6 temporary addresses, a dynamic tracing facility called DTrace, and the addition of BART, the Basic Audit and Reporting Tool which privides an improved method of comparing systems, configuration and installed software.

A quick recap of the exciting changes in earlier releases, a new routeadm command has been added, the IP stack has been rewritten, USB support is significantly enhanced and USB 2.0 was added, a top-down volume creation tool for SVM called metassist was added, and much much more. Download it for free here.

According to this NEWS.COM article, Tadpole is expected to announce its “Viper” UltraSPARC-IIIi-based laptop on Tuesday the 18th. The machine will hold up to 2G of RAM, 80G of storage, DVD/CD-RW, and wireless network capability.

At Comdex today Sun announced its intentions to add a complete portfolio of AMD Opteron microprocessor-based servers and desktops running Solaris(tm), Linux, and the Java(tm) Enterprise System to Sun’s entry-level family of UltraSPARC and Xeon-based x86-based systems. Oracle, BEA,
SAP, Cadence, Computer Associates, Landmark Graphics, Synopsys and Documentum are among the first enterprise software providers to provide their horizontally scalable applications on the new AMD Opteron hardware.

More Info: http://www.sun.com/2003-1117/feature/

According to this NEWS.COM article, Sun plans to release a free version of the Java application server this week and the release of Solaris 10 in mid-2004.

Join Sun’s Chief Strategy Officer, Mark Tolliver on Wednesday, December 3, 2003 at 8 am PST for Sun’s Network
Computing O3-Q4 Event. This event’s focus includes product releases that will help you scale out and drive network costs down. Videocasts of Sun leaders detailing how to use network computing for business advantage are also included.

Sign up for an e-mail reminder: http://sun.com/bignews49

This paper presents an availability analysis for multitier, Java(tm) and Web-based application deployments running on the Sun(tm) ONE Application Server 7, Enterprise Edition software. The results show that this software is able to support 99.999-percent application availability in common Web deployment.

http://java.sun.com/docs/performance/AS7-EE-5-Nines-HA-Evidence.pdf

According to this NEWS.COM article, Sun is expected to announce dual-CPU AMD Opteron-based 64-bit x86 servers at Comdex on November 17th.

Reduction of risk, cost, and complexity and Sun’s approach to IT sourcing are addressed in this IDC Whitepaper. Sun Managed Services provides a portfolio of IT infrastructure management capabilities to help you stay in control of your IT environment. With Sun’s approach to IT sourcing, you have the flexibility to adjust your sourcing strategy over time.

Find out more: http://www.sun.com/service/managedservices

Moderated by Michael Kreiger from Ziff Davis, Sun executives Jonathan Schwartz and John Loiacono will answer your questions relating to Sun’s Java Enterprise System. Set aside November 10 at 11 am PDT for this Special Edition Net Talk hosted by Ziff Davis Media eseminars.

To participate: http://www.sun.com/nettalk/java_system?ssobm=ol3