Octave Orgeron wrote:
> Here's a fun test that shouldn't cost millions for Sun to do today. How about
> get Nvidia or ATI to build a PCI and PCI-E 3D video card that will work with
> OpenSolaris Xorg on SPARC. Make it work on UltraSPARC III/IIIi workstations
> and sell it for under $300. I'm willing to bet that this would sell like
> crazy and make tons of people happy.
Sun's been selling ATI cards for SPARC workstations for a while,
the XVR-100 (PCI) and XVR-300 (PCI-E) - both of which are supported
under OpenSolaris Xorg - sales are not exciting in the least.
Developing new models would cost millions, especially if it meant
having nvidia port their driver to a new platform and develop
OBP-compatible firmware for their hardware.
> It would also let Sun see that there is still a large SPARC workstation
> market out there that they have been ignoring.
A new SPARC workstation would require a significant design effort, since
the CPU's used in the previous models are simply no longer made, and
workstation based on either the Niagara or SPARC64 chips would be a
significantly different beast. That one hasn't been produced doesn't
mean Sun's ignoring it's users, just that management hasn't believed that
it could earn enough profit on such a project in the current economic
climate to justify pulling engineers off other projects.
> This isn't rocket science, look on Ebay and check out the number of SPARC
> workstations being sold every week! And why? Because businesses and
> professionals need a SPARC workstation.
But every workstation offered for sale on Ebay is a sign that someone else
no longer needs one.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
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