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69-498: Sun ONE was a brand under which Sun Microsystems marketed server software products from 2002 to 2003. Sun ONE stood for Sun Open Net Environment . The Sun ONE brand was primarily used for products that resulted after the dissolution of Sun's alliance with Netscape Communications Corporation , which was sold under the brand name of iPlanet. The name was also applied to other Sun software products such as Sun ONE Studio 8 and Sun ONE Active Server Pages 4.0. Products included: Sun ONE

138-503: A $ 12,000 (equivalent to $ 29,000 in 2023) "personal workstation" might be a high-end PC like Macintosh II or IBM PS/2 Model 80 , low-end workstation, or a hybrid device like the NeXT Computer , all with similar, overlapping specifications. One differentiator between PC and workstation was that the latter was much more likely to have a graphics accelerator with support for a graphics standard like PHIGS or X Window , while

207-517: A network , but the most common form refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems , Silicon Graphics , Apollo Computer , DEC , HP , NeXT , and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s. Workstations formerly offered higher performance than mainstream personal computers , especially in CPU , graphics , memory, and multitasking. Workstations are optimized for

276-465: A 20% stake in Sun. UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) was jointly developed by AT&T and Sun. Sun used SVR4 as the foundation for Solaris 2.x, which became the successor to SunOS 4.1.x (later retroactively named Solaris 1.x). By the mid-1990s, the ensuing Unix wars had largely subsided, AT&T had sold off their Unix interests, and the relationship between the two companies was significantly reduced. In

345-416: A consistent design philosophy. Sun's first workstation shipped with UniSoft V7 Unix . Later in 1982 Sun began providing SunOS , a customized 4.2BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations. SunOS included suntools , an early GUI window system . In the late 1980s, AT&T tapped Sun to help them develop the next release of their branded UNIX, and in 1988 announced they would purchase up to

414-432: A high-resolution display, a keyboard , and a mouse at a minimum, but also offers multiple displays, graphics tablets , and 3D mice for manipulating objects and navigating scenes. Workstations were the first segment of the computer market to present advanced accessories, and collaboration tools like videoconferencing . The increasing capabilities of mainstream PCs since the late 1990s have reduced distinction between

483-497: A line of x64 systems that support not only Solaris, but also Linux and Microsoft Windows . In January 2007 Sun announced a broad strategic alliance with Intel . Intel endorsed Solaris as a mainstream operating system and as its mission critical Unix for its Xeon processor–based systems, and contributed engineering resources to OpenSolaris . Sun began using the Intel Xeon processor in its x64 server line, starting with

552-411: A megapixel display (roughly 1000×1000 pixels), and one " MegaFLOPS " compute performance (at least one million floating-point operations per second). RFC 782 defines the workstation environment more generally as "hardware and software dedicated to serve a single user", and that it provisions additional shared resources. This is at least one order of magnitude beyond the capacity of the personal computer of

621-950: A much higher price. Workstations have typically driven advancements in CPU technology. All computers benefit from multi-processor and multicore designs (essentially, multiple processors on a die ). The multicore design was pioneered by IBM's POWER4 ; it and Intel Xeon have multiple CPUs, more on-die cache, and ECC memory. Some workstations are designed or certified for use with only one specific application such as AutoCAD , Avid Xpress Studio HD, or 3D Studio Max . The certification process increases workstation prices. Modern workstations are typically desktop computers with AMD or NVIDIA GPUs to do high-performance computing on software programs such as video editing , 3D modeling , computer-aided design , and rendering . By January 2009, all RISC -based workstation product lines had been discontinued: In early 2018, RISC workstations were reintroduced in

690-487: A multiuser system reserved for one user. For example, the PDP-8 from Digital Equipment Corporation , is regarded as the first commercial minicomputer. Workstations have historically been more advanced than contemporary PCs, with more powerful CPU architectures, earlier networking, more advanced graphics, more memory, and multitasking with sophisticated operating systems like Unix. Because of their minicomputer heritage, from

759-713: A net GAAP profit of $ 126 million on revenue of $ 3.337 billion for its fiscal second quarter. Shortly following that news, it was announced that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) would invest $ 700 million in the company. Sun had engineering groups in Bangalore , Beijing , Dublin , Grenoble , Hamburg , Prague , St. Petersburg , Tel Aviv , Tokyo , Canberra and Trondheim . In 2007–2008, Sun posted revenue of $ 13.8 billion and had $ 2 billion in cash. First-quarter 2008 losses were $ 1.68 billion; revenue fell 7% to $ 12.99 billion. Sun's stock lost 80% of its value November 2007 to November 2008, reducing

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828-509: A personal workstation suitable for 2D CAD costing $ 5,000 (equivalent to $ 12,000 in 2023) to $ 25,000 (equivalent to $ 61,000 in 2023) was available from multiple vendors. Mid-range models capable of 3D graphics cost from $ 35,000 (equivalent to $ 86,000 in 2023) to $ 60,000 (equivalent to $ 147,000 in 2023), while high-end models overlapping with minicomputers cost from $ 80,000 (equivalent to $ 197,000 in 2023) to $ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 246,000 in 2023) or more. By then

897-682: A primary developer of the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), joined soon after and is counted as one of the original founders. The company was the second, after rival Apollo Computer , to specialize in workstations. The name "Sun" is derived from the initials of the Stanford University Network (SUN). Sun was profitable from its first quarter in July 1982. By 1983, Sun was known for producing 68k-based systems with high-quality graphics that were

966-437: A reputation as one of Microsoft 's most vocal antagonists, Sun entered into a joint relationship with them, resolving various legal entanglements between the two companies and receiving US$ 1.95 billion in settlement payments from them. Sun supported Microsoft Windows on its x64 systems, and announced other collaborative agreements with Microsoft, including plans to support each other's virtualization environments. In 2005,

1035-661: A series of IBM POWER9 -based systems by Raptor Computing Systems. In October of 2024 System 76 introduces The Thelio Astra an Arm workstation aim for autonomous car industry. Most of the current workstation market uses x86-64 microprocessors. Operating systems include Windows , FreeBSD , Linux distributions , macOS , and Solaris . Some vendors also market commodity mono-socket systems as workstations. These are three types of workstations: A high-end desktop market segment includes workstations, with PC operating systems and components. Component product lines may be segmented, with premium components that are functionally similar to

1104-475: A similar role for technical computing. Sun's thin clients include the Sun Ray product line. However, traditional workstations and PCs continued to drop in price and complexity as remote management tools for IT staff became available, undercutting this market. A high-end workstation of the early 1980s with the three Ms, or a "3M computer" (coined by Raj Reddy and his colleagues at CMU), has one megabyte of RAM,

1173-737: A single user, with high-resolution graphics (and so a workstation in the modern sense), is the Alto developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. Other early workstations include the Terak 8510/a (1977), Three Rivers PERQ (1979), and the later Xerox Star (1981). In the early 1980s, with the advent of 32-bit microprocessors such as the Motorola 68000 , several new competitors appeared, including Apollo Computer and Sun Microsystems , with workstations based on 68000 and Unix . Meanwhile, DARPA 's VLSI Project created several spinoff graphics products, such as

1242-741: A suite of software products, including the Solaris operating system , developer tools, Web infrastructure software, and identity management applications. Technologies included the Java platform and NFS . In general, Sun was a proponent of open systems, particularly Unix. It was also a major contributor to open-source software , as evidenced by its $ 1 billion purchase, in 2008, of MySQL , an open-source relational database management system . At various times, Sun had manufacturing facilities in several locations worldwide, including Newark, California ; Hillsboro, Oregon ; and Linlithgow, Scotland . However, by

1311-423: A traditional operating system and perform computations locally, with storage on a remote server . These are intended to reduce the initial system purchase cost, and the total cost of ownership , by reducing the amount of administration required per user. This approach was first attempted as a replacement for PCs in office productivity applications, with the 3Station by 3Com . In the 1990s, X terminals filled

1380-484: A variety of pricing bases, including per-employee and per-socket. A 2006 report prepared for the EU by UNU-MERIT stated that Sun was the largest corporate contributor to open source movements in the world. According to this report, Sun's open source contributions exceed the combined total of the next five largest commercial contributors. Sun is best known for its Unix systems, which have a reputation for system stability and

1449-408: Is Solaris 10 1/13. Workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems . The term workstation has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to

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1518-518: Is an SMP capable version of UltraSPARC T2, available in 2 or 4 processor configurations. It was the first CoolThreads CPU with multi-processor capability and it made possible to build standard rack-mounted servers that could simultaneously process up to massive 256 CPU threads in hardware (Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440), which is considered a record in the industry. Since 2010, all further development of Sun machines based on SPARC architecture (including new SPARC T-Series servers, SPARC T3 and T4 chips)

1587-604: Is an increasing need to reduce power and air conditioning demands, much of which comes from the heat generated by CPUs. The T1 was followed in 2007 by the UltraSPARC T2 , which extended the number of threads per core from 4 to 8. Sun has open sourced the design specifications of both the T1 and T2 processors via the OpenSPARC project. In 2006, Sun ventured into the blade server (high density rack-mounted systems) market with

1656-509: Is done as a part of Oracle Corporation hardware division. In the late 1980s, Sun also marketed an Intel 80386 –based machine, the Sun386i ; this was designed to be a hybrid system, running SunOS but at the same time supporting DOS applications. This only remained on the market for a brief time. A follow-up "486i" upgrade was announced but only a few prototype units were ever manufactured. Sun's brief first foray into x86 systems ended in

1725-769: The SUN workstation for the Stanford University Network communications project as a personal CAD workstation . It was designed around the Motorola 68000 processor with an advanced memory management unit (MMU) to support the Unix operating system with virtual memory support. He built the first examples from spare parts obtained from Stanford's Department of Computer Science and Silicon Valley supply houses. On February 24, 1982, Scott McNealy , Andy Bechtolsheim , and Vinod Khosla , all Stanford graduate students, founded Sun Microsystems . Bill Joy of Berkeley,

1794-516: The Silicon Graphics 3130 . Target markets were differentiated, with Sun and Apollo considered to be network workstations and SGI as graphics workstations. RISC CPUs increased in the mid-1980s, typical of workstation vendors. Competition between RISC vendors lowered CPU prices to as little as $ 10 per MIPS, much less expensive than the Intel 80386 ; after large price cuts in 1987 and 1988,

1863-646: The Sun Blade (distinct from the Sun Blade workstation). In April 2007, Sun released the SPARC Enterprise server products, jointly designed by Sun and Fujitsu and based on Fujitsu SPARC64 VI and later processors. The M-class SPARC Enterprise systems include high-end reliability and availability features. Later T-series servers have also been badged SPARC Enterprise rather than Sun Fire. In April 2008, Sun released servers with UltraSPARC T2 Plus, which

1932-556: The Sun-1 through Sun-3 computer series. The Sun-1 employed a 68000 CPU, the Sun-2 series, a 68010 . The Sun-3 series was based on the 68020 , with the later Sun-3x using the 68030 . In 1987, the company began using SPARC , a RISC processor architecture of its own design, in its computer systems, starting with the Sun-4 line. SPARC was initially a 32-bit architecture (SPARC V7) until

2001-582: The dot-com bubble , Sun began making more money, with its stock rising as high as $ 250 per share. It also began spending much more, hiring workers and building itself out. Some of this was because of genuine demand, but much was from web start-up companies anticipating business that would never happen. In 2000, the bubble burst. Sales in Sun's important hardware division went into free-fall as customers closed shop and auctioned high-end servers. Several quarters of steep losses led to executive departures, rounds of layoffs, and other cost cutting. In December 2001,

2070-412: The visualization and manipulation of different types of complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulations like computational fluid dynamics , animation , video editing , image editing , medical imaging , image rendering, computational science , generating mathematical plots , and software development . Typically, the form factor is that of a desktop computer , which consists of

2139-797: The Japanese company's processor chips in mid-range and high-end Sun servers. These servers were announced on April 17, 2007, as the M-Series, part of the SPARC Enterprise series. In February 2005, Sun announced the Sun Grid , a grid computing deployment on which it offered utility computing services priced at US$ 1 per CPU/hour for processing and per GB/month for storage. This offering built upon an existing 3,000-CPU server farm used for internal R&D for over 10 years, which Sun marketed as being able to achieve 97% utilization. In August 2005,

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2208-532: The LX50, based in part on previous Cobalt system expertise. This was also Sun's first system announced to support Linux as well as Solaris. In 2003, Sun announced a strategic alliance with AMD to produce x86/x64 servers based on AMD's Opteron processor; this was followed shortly by Sun's acquisition of Kealia, a startup founded by original Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim , which had been focusing on high-performance AMD-based servers. The following year, Sun launched

2277-525: The Newark campus was put on the market. In 2004, Sun canceled two major processor projects which emphasized high instruction-level parallelism and operating frequency. Instead, the company chose to concentrate on processors optimized for multi-threading and multiprocessing , such as the UltraSPARC T1 processor (codenamed "Niagara"). The company also announced a collaboration with Fujitsu to use

2346-738: The Opteron-based Sun Fire V20z and V40z servers, and the Sun Java Workstation W1100z and W2100z workstations. In September 2005 Sun unveiled a new range of Opteron-based servers: the Sun Fire X2100, X4100 and X4200 servers. These were designed from scratch by a team led by Bechtolsheim to address heat and power consumption issues commonly faced in data centers. In July 2006, the Sun Fire X4500 and X4600 systems were introduced, extending

2415-694: The PCs and workstations. Typical 1980s workstations have expensive proprietary hardware and operating systems to categorically distinguish from standardized PCs. From the 1990s and 2000s, IBM 's RS/6000 and IntelliStation have RISC -based POWER CPUs running AIX , and its IBM PC Series and Aptiva corporate and consumer PCs have Intel x86 CPUs. However, by the early 2000s, this difference largely disappeared, since workstations use highly commoditized hardware dominated by large PC vendors, such as Dell , Hewlett-Packard , and Fujitsu , selling x86-64 systems running Windows or Linux . Workstations are older than

2484-637: The Quadra 700 was an intriguing option at a fraction of the cost" as resource-intensive software such as Infini-D brought "studio-quality 3D rendering and animations to the home desktop". The Quadra 700 can run A/UX 3.0, making it a Unix workstation. Another example is the Nvidia GeForce 256 consumer graphics card, which spawned the Quadro workstation card, which has the same GPU but different driver support and certifications for CAD applications and

2553-544: The Sun Blade X6250 server module introduced in June 2007. In May 2008 AMD announced its Operating System Research Center (OSRC) was expanding its focus to include optimization to Sun's OpenSolaris and xVM virtualization products for AMD processors. Although Sun was initially known as a hardware company, its software history began with its founding in 1982; co-founder Bill Joy was one of the leading Unix developers of

2622-596: The aim of building network appliances (single function computers meant for consumers). Sun also marketed a Network Computer (a term popularized and eventually trademarked by Oracle ); the JavaStation was a diskless system designed to run Java applications. Although none of these business initiatives were particularly successful, the Cobalt purchase gave Sun a toehold for its return to the x86 hardware market. In 2002, Sun introduced its first general purpose x86 system,

2691-576: The amounts indicated when the acquisition closed. For the first decade of Sun's history, the company positioned its products as technical workstations , competing successfully as a low-cost vendor during the Workstation Wars of the 1980s. It then shifted its hardware product line to emphasize servers and storage. High-level telecom control systems such as Operational Support Systems service predominantly used Sun equipment. Sun originally used Motorola 68000 family central processing units for

2760-449: The companies that make the products tend to have comprehensive repair/replacement plans. As the distinction between workstation and PC fades, however, workstation manufacturers have increasingly employed "off-the-shelf" PC components and graphics solutions rather than proprietary hardware or software. Some "low-cost" workstations are still expensive by PC standards but offer binary compatibility with higher-end workstations and servers made by

2829-403: The company released Solaris 10. The new version included a large number of enhancements to the operating system, as well as very novel features, previously unseen in the industry. Solaris 10 update releases continued through the next 8 years, the last release from Sun Microsystems being Solaris 10 10/09. The following updates were released by Oracle under the new license agreement; the final release

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2898-418: The company's current strategy. Sun's logo, which features four interleaved copies of the word sun in the form of a rotationally symmetric ambigram , was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt , also of Stanford. The initial version of the logo was orange and had the sides oriented horizontally and vertically, but it was subsequently rotated to stand on one corner and re-colored purple, and later blue. During

2967-472: The company's market value to $ 3 billion. With falling sales to large corporate clients, Sun announced plans to lay off 5,000 to 6,000 workers, or 15–18% of its work force. It expected to save $ 700 million to $ 800 million a year as a result of the moves, while also taking up to $ 600 million in charges. As of May 11, 2009, the following shareholders held over 100,000 common shares of Sun and at $ 9.50 per share offered by Oracle, they received

3036-555: The cost of logic circuitry, enabling IBM to make it inexpensive. The machine is codenamed CADET and was initially rented for $ 1000 per month. In 1965, the IBM 1130 scientific computer became the successor to 1620. Both of these systems run Fortran and other languages. They are built into roughly desk-sized cabinets, with console typewriters. They have optional add-on disk drives, printers, and both paper-tape and punched-card I/O. Early workstations were generally dedicated minicomputers ,

3105-738: The early 1990s, Brian P. Dougherty , founder of Berkeley Softworks (which would go on to be re-incorporated as the GeoWorks Corporation ) accused the Java development team at Sun for studying GeoWorks's PC/GEOS operating system and incorporating features of PC/GEOS into their Unix-based operating system. Brian claimed that the object-oriented and flexible UI of PC/GEOS was "to this day the most sophisticated UI technology ever built into an OS". From 1992 Sun also sold Interactive Unix , an operating system it acquired when it bought Interactive Systems Corporation from Eastman Kodak Company. This

3174-402: The early 1990s, as it decided to concentrate on SPARC and retire the last Motorola systems and 386i products, a move dubbed by McNealy as "all the wood behind one arrowhead". Even so, Sun kept its hand in the x86 world, as a release of Solaris for PC compatibles began shipping in 1993. In 1997, Sun acquired Diba, Inc., followed later by the acquisition of Cobalt Networks in 2000, with

3243-422: The first personal computer (PC). The first computer that might qualify as a workstation is the IBM 1620 , a small scientific computer designed to be used interactively by a single person sitting at the console. It was introduced in 1959. One peculiar feature of the machine is that it lacks any arithmetic circuitry. To perform addition, it requires a memory-resident table of decimal addition rules. This reduced

3312-441: The first commercial use of this grid was announced for financial risk simulations which were later launched as its first software as a service product. In January 2005, Sun reported a net profit of $ 19 million for fiscal 2005 second quarter, for the first time in three years. This was followed by net loss of $ 9 million on GAAP basis for the third quarter 2005, as reported on April 14, 2005. In January 2007, Sun reported

3381-421: The former usually depended on software rendering or proprietary accelerators. The computer animation industry's needs typically caused improvements in graphical technology, with CAD using the same improvements later. BYTE predicted in 1989 "Soon, the only way we'll be able to tell the difference between traditional workstations and PCs will be by the operating system they run", with the former running Unix and

3450-431: The four-processor SPARCserver 600MP. This was followed by the 8-processor SPARCserver 1000 and 20-processor SPARCcenter 2000, which were based on work done in conjunction with Xerox PARC . In 1995 the company introduced Sun Ultra series machines that were equipped with the first 64-bit implementation of SPARC processors ( UltraSPARC ). In the late 1990s the transformation of product line in favor of large 64-bit SMP systems

3519-627: The introduction of the SPARC V9 architecture in 1995, which added 64-bit extensions. Sun developed several generations of SPARC-based computer systems, including the SPARCstation , Ultra , and Sun Blade series of workstations, and the SPARCserver, Netra , Enterprise , and Sun Fire line of servers. In the early 1990s the company began to extend its product line to include large-scale symmetric multiprocessing servers, starting with

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3588-598: The latter running OS/2 , classic Mac OS , and/or Unix. Many workstations by then had some method to run increasingly popular and powerful PC software such as Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Word . The magazine demonstrated that year that an individual could build a workstation with commodity components with specifications comparable to commercially available low-end workstations. Workstations often featured SCSI or Fibre Channel disk storage systems, high-end 3D accelerators , single or multiple 64-bit processors , large amounts of RAM , and well-designed cooling. Additionally,

3657-526: The most powerful, enterprise class high-end CC-NUMA servers developed by Sun, such as the Sun Fire E15K and the Sun Fire E25K . In November 2005, Sun launched the UltraSPARC T1 , notable for its ability to concurrently run 32 threads of execution on 8 processor cores. Its intent was to drive more efficient use of CPU resources, which is of particular importance in data centers , where there

3726-632: The new UltraSPARC CPUs based on the SPARC V9 architecture. Within the next four years, the successors Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 were released in 2000 and 2002 respectively. Following several years of difficult competition and loss of server market share to competitors' Linux-based systems, Sun began to include Linux as part of its strategy in 2002. Sun supported both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on its x64 systems; companies such as Canonical Ltd. , Wind River Systems and MontaVista also supported their versions of Linux on Sun's SPARC-based systems. In 2004, after having cultivated

3795-464: The only computers other than DEC 's VAX to run 4.2BSD . It licensed the computer design to other manufacturers, which typically used it to build Multibus -based systems running Unix from UniSoft . Sun's initial public offering was in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW , for Sun Workstations (later Sun Worldwide ). The symbol was changed in 2007 to JAVA ; Sun stated that the brand awareness associated with its Java platform better represented

3864-476: The same as the consumer market, and the price differential narrowed. For example, most Macintosh Quadra computers were originally intended for scientific or design work, all with the Motorola 68040 CPU, backward compatible with 68000 Macintoshes. The consumer Macintosh IIcx and Macintosh IIci models can be upgraded to the Quadra 700 . "In an era when many professionals preferred Silicon Graphics workstations,

3933-422: The same vendor. This allows software development to take place on low-cost (relative to the server) desktop machines. Workstations diversified to the lowest possible price point as opposed to performance, called the thin client or network computer . Dependent upon a network and server, this reduces the machine to having no hard drive, and only the CPU, keyboard, mouse, and screen. Some diskless nodes still run

4002-665: The start workstations have run professional and expensive software such as CAD and graphics design, as opposed to PCs' games and text editors. The Lisp machines developed at MIT in the early 1970s pioneered some workstation principles, as high-performance, networked, single-user systems intended for heavily interactive use. Lisp Machines were commercialized beginning 1980 by companies like Symbolics , Lisp Machines , Texas Instruments (the TI Explorer ), and Xerox (the Interlisp-D workstations). The first computer designed for

4071-402: The stock fell to the 1998, pre-bubble level of about $ 100. It continued to fall, faster than many other technology companies. A year later, it had reached below $ 10 (a tenth of what it was in 1990), but it eventually bounced back to $ 20. In mid-2004, Sun closed their Newark, California , factory and consolidated all manufacturing to Hillsboro, Oregon and Linlithgow, Scotland. In 2006, the rest of

4140-547: The time the company was acquired by Oracle Corporation , it had outsourced most manufacturing responsibilities. On April 20, 2009, it was announced that Oracle would acquire Sun for US$ 7.4 billion. The deal was completed on January 27, 2010. The initial design for what became Sun's first Unix workstation , the Sun-1 , was conceived by Andy Bechtolsheim when he was a graduate student at Stanford University in Palo Alto , California. Bechtolsheim originally designed

4209-736: The time, having contributed the vi editor, the C shell , and significant work developing TCP/IP and the BSD Unix OS. Sun later developed software such as the Java programming language and acquired software such as StarOffice , VirtualBox and MySQL . In February 1991, the company established SunSoft, Inc., a wholly owned division of Sun dedicated to the development of operating systems and application software. Sun used community-based and open-source licensing of its major technologies, and for its support of its products with other open source technologies. GNOME -based desktop software called Java Desktop System (originally code-named "Madhatter")

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4278-486: The time. The original 1981 IBM Personal Computer has 16 KB memory, a text-only display, and floating-point performance around 1  kFLOPS ( 30 kFLOPS with the optional 8087 math coprocessor. Other features beyond the typical personal computer include networking, graphics acceleration, and high-speed internal and peripheral data buses. Another goal was to bring the price below one " megapenny ", that is, less than $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 28,000 in 2023), which

4347-519: Was a popular Unix variant for the PC platform and a major competitor to market leader SCO UNIX . Sun's focus on Interactive Unix diminished in favor of Solaris on both SPARC and x86 systems; it was dropped as a product in 2001. Sun dropped the Solaris 2.x version numbering scheme after the Solaris 2.6 release (1997); the following version was branded Solaris 7. This was the first 64-bit release, intended for

4416-635: Was accelerated by the acquisition of Cray Business Systems Division from Silicon Graphics. Their 32-bit, 64-processor Cray Superserver 6400 , related to the SPARCcenter, led to the 64-bit Sun Enterprise 10000 high-end server (otherwise known as Starfire or E10K). In September 2004, Sun made available systems with UltraSPARC IV which was the first multi-core SPARC processor. It was followed by UltraSPARC IV+ in September 2005 and its revisions with higher clock speeds in 2007. These CPUs were used in

4485-448: Was achieved in the late 1980s. Throughout the early to mid-1990s, many workstations cost from $ 15,000 to $ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 200,000 in 2023) or more. The more widespread adoption of these technologies into mainstream PCs was a direct factor in the decline of the workstation as a separate market segment: Since the late 1990s, the workstation and consumer markets have further merged. Many low-end workstation components are now

4554-658: Was an American technology company that sold computers , computer components , software , and information technology services and created the Java programming language , the Solaris operating system , ZFS , the Network File System (NFS), and SPARC microprocessors . Sun contributed significantly to the evolution of several key computing technologies, among them Unix , RISC processors , thin client computing, and virtualized computing . Notable Sun acquisitions include Cray Business Systems Division , Storagetek , and Innotek GmbH , creators of VirtualBox . Sun

4623-523: Was distributed for the Solaris operating system, and at one point for Linux. Sun supported its Java Enterprise System (a middleware stack) on Linux. It released the source code for Solaris under the open-source Common Development and Distribution License , via the OpenSolaris community. Sun's positioning includes a commitment to indemnify users of some software from intellectual property disputes concerning that software. It offers support services on

4692-581: Was founded on February 24, 1982. At its height, the Sun headquarters were in Santa Clara, California (part of Silicon Valley ), on the former west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center . Sun products included computer servers and workstations built on its own RISC -based SPARC processor architecture , as well as on x86 -based AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors. Sun also developed its own storage systems and

4761-586: Was introduced on April 15, 2002, to supersede the iPlanet brand name, following the end of the Sun-Netscape alliance. Sun ONE itself was superseded on September 16, 2003, by the Sun Java System brand. The Sun Java Enterprise System is itself broken into smaller suites, which include: This business software article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. ( Sun for short)

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