Sun is to revive the Intel version of Solaris, which it effectively mothballed late last year.
From September, Sun will offer Solaris x86 8.0, alongside Linux on its new "Big Bear" Intel hardware that it will announce this morning in San Francisco. And from early next year, Solaris 9.0 for Intel will be an option, too.
"We plan to resync the updates for Solaris 9 between x86 and SPARC with the second update release in December 2002," wrote Sun"s Graham Lovell on a user message board.
InfoWorld has speeds and feeds for the Big Bear machines, here. (We note with some relief that InfoWorld"s rampaging hyperlink bot, that used to underline every occurrence of the word "server" or "chip" has been found and destroyed - or has snuck off on vacation).
There"s one catch: it will only be licensed for Sun"s x86 hardware. This allows the Solaris for managers to argue that the little-used, but much-loved Solaris port isn"t an albatross, but is driving revenue.