At face value the two companies look like direct opposities. One is one of the most prolific R&D company out of Silicon Valley (Sun) and the other is a box mover from Round Rock. Dell shtick has always been operational efficiency letting others pay for R&D and product development.However this week Dell and Sun announced support for Dell on Solaris: The rational for this is that there are an awful lot of Dells running Solaris out there and it is time to rationalize support for those customers however:
Truth be told, the relationship with Dell has been in the making for a while – I flew down to Texas last year to have dinner at his house (with a fortuitous 180 knot tail wind – sadly, I had return the same night with a 180 knot headwind).
It is not easy for a company whose success is so predicated on Microsoft changing in any meaningful way. Even with support for Ubuntu announced earlier this year, Dell will not push the platform or even make it easy to buy and support. I suspect the same too for Solaris. They will support it if you know the secret 800 number and are prepared to talk to Sanjay in Bangalore for two hours. Dell single OS success in the past is now it’s biggest weakness, its drive for standardization and homogeneous computing environment is now looking decidedly 20th Century …..
