According to this InternetNews article, Sun has officially discontinued their Cobalt server line (last order date was November 20th). Customers are being encouraged to migrate to the newer AMD and Intel-based SunFire servers.

According to this NEWS.COM article, Sun has landed a contract with Office Depot, squeezing out IBM. Furthermore, Office Depot has agreed to sell Sun’s StarOffice in its stores.

Consulting Times has a great article up about Sun’s Java Desktop.

The next generation of Linux is here, 2.6.0 was released this evening. Alot of work has gone into Sparc64 support, including fibre channel support, QFE support, etc. Not to mention support for some of the general features of the 2.6 kernel like NFSv4 (also in Solaris10), OpenAFS, CODA, and much much more. If you’ve never used Linux on Sparc both Gentoo and Debian are good distros depending on your tastes, and with the OpenBoot PROM we all know and love dual booting for some play is childs play. [Correction: The AFS client code in 2.6 is not OpenAFS code, it is a new implementation from Red Hat -benr]

This NEWS.COM article explains how Sun services for business differ from IBM Global Services’ offerings.

Sun is funding the next big generation of SETI@HOME work based on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform. Sun has contributed some older systems (E3500, E450′s, etc), software, and naturally, cash.

Just released is Solaris Express 12/03 (Solaris10 Build 46). New highlights include new core file content and debuging enhancements, BIND 8.4.2, LDAP command changes, event ports (changes to signal.h), a system management (SNMP) agent (finally!), and the ability to (finally!) configure multiple network interfaces during install. Fetch it from the usual place. Some great stuff is happening in Solaris10, keep up with the changes and let Sun know about bugs, problems, or suggestions.

Effective Jan 5th everyones favorite #2 becomes the newest #1 taking over as Motorola CEO. It’s doubtful this will ever have any direct effect on Sun in any way, but it’s always nice to keep track of old friends. And in that same vein, keep your eyes out for Bill Joy’s new book Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us : How 21st Century Technologies Threaten to Make Humans an Endangered Species” which is due next month.

Sun has eliminated its $20 charge for downloading Solaris x86 versions 8 and 9.

Here’s a twist, Java Goes to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart seems skidish, but a deal may be coming soon.

Marathon International was kind enough to send me a Tadpole SPARCLE to use for a month. My review is now available.

Pkg-tools, tools to aid in the development of Solaris software packages, has been updated to version 1.2.

SUPerG has sent out its Spring 2004 newsletter and announces the next meeting for the 3rd thru the 7th of May 2004 in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. If your hoping to get a paper submitted the abstracts are due by Dec 12th, so get cracking! This meeting will focus on Security, Data Center Simplification, HPTC & Grid Computing, and as usual, Performance Optimization & Best Practices. For details visit the SUPerG home page.

If you’ve never heard of SUPerG, read on…
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