The Operating Systems of Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, recently acquired by Oracle Corporation, had experienced a long line of success in the realm of operating systems.  From Sun’s initial beginnings under order of Stanford University graduate and founder of Sun Microsystems, Andy Bechtolsheim; to the new product designs that Oracle has now acquired, it seems that Sun had mastered the art of functional and efficient operating systems and workstations in each time period of technology advancement.  Their logo symbol of four intertwined figures spelling ’sun’, can be found on workstations around the globe, today.

Sun started their career in the dot.com era, supplying international and domestic customers with hardware.  Although, even before this, they supplied vendors with very low cost technical workstations.  This was before their innovative moves into Motorola, or SPARC, which they later used.  These technical workstations, and their first hardware developments were their main source of reliable income at the time.  So even as Sun Microsystems expanded their product line, they still focused their efforts on that of hardware.

In the early two thousands, Sun Microsystems decided to move into the production and sales of processors that specialized in micro-threading or multi-processing.  In 2007 these very servers were announced to become a part of the SPARC Enterprise Series.

Sun also announced that they would be teaming up with Fugitsu to create a stance in the high-end processor market.  In using Fugitsu’s processor chips in Sun’s servers, these M-Series servers became a hit.  In the same year (2007), Sun Microsystems reported a net GAAP profit of revenue reaching one hundred and twenty-six million US dollars for its first quarter.  In the company’s second quarter, over three billion United States dollars was reported.  It was not long after this report, that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts decided to invest approximately seven hundred million dollars into Sun Microsystems, seeing their great strides in the world of processing technology.

Even as focuses in the two thousands laid within hardware, Sun servers and processors; software was still being funded, as of its 1982 emergence into Sun’s product line.  Sun, of course, is known for its Java programming language, but also for supporting product lines with other open source technologies and its prior work with Unix Systems line.  Mainly known for Unix systems work in the 1980‘s, Sun created a philosophy projecting a consistent design technology.

It’s hard to tell which markets Sun Microsystems has not tried or dipped into, given their range of innovative ideas and constructions.  From software to hardware, this company has kept up with its competitors through the years.  In merging and/or acquiring over twenty companies since its mere beginnings, the flow of ideas is constantly streaming through Sun’s team of experts.  Now under Oracle Corporation, it will be interesting to see what products Oracle produces via Sun Microsystems, next.


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