Later in 1982 Sun began providing SunOS, a customized 4.1BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations. 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 a 20% stake in Sun.
Sun was founded on February 24, 1982.
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.
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 the only computers other than DEC's VAX to run 4.2BSD.
Later in 1982 Sun began providing SunOS, a customized 4.1BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations. 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 a 20% stake in 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 the only computers other than DEC's VAX to run 4.2BSD.
Sun's initial public offering was in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW, for Sun Workstations (later Sun Worldwide).
The Sun-3 series was based on the 68020, with the later Sun-3x using the 68030. ===SPARC-based systems=== 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.
Later in 1982 Sun began providing SunOS, a customized 4.1BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations. 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 a 20% stake in Sun.
A year later, it had reached below $10 (a tenth of what it was in 1990), but it eventually bounced back to $20.
In the late 1990s the transformation of product line in favor of large 64-bit SMP systems was accelerated by the acquisition of Cray Business Systems Division from Silicon Graphics.
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 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".
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. From 1992 Sun also sold Interactive Unix, an operating system it acquired when it bought Interactive Systems Corporation from Eastman Kodak Company.
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 the aim of building network appliances (single function computers meant for consumers).
In 1995 the company introduced Sun Ultra series machines that were equipped with the first 64-bit implementation of SPARC processors (UltraSPARC).
Since its introduction in late 1995, it became one of the world's most popular programming languages. Java programs are compiled to byte code, which can be executed by any JVM, regardless of the environment. The Java APIs provide an extensive set of library routines.
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 the aim of building network appliances (single function computers meant for consumers).
In December 2001, the stock fell to the 1998, pre-bubble level of about $100.
JavaFX was a development platform for music, video and other applications that builds on the Java programming language. ===Office suite=== In 1999, Sun acquired the German software company Star Division and with it the office suite StarOffice, which Sun later released as OpenOffice.org under both GNU LGPL and the SISSL (Sun Industry Standards Source License).
In 2000, the bubble burst.
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.
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 the aim of building network appliances (single function computers meant for consumers).
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.
In December 2001, the stock fell to the 1998, pre-bubble level of about $100.
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.
In 2002, Sun introduced its first general purpose x86 system, the LX50, based in part on previous Cobalt system expertise.
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.
In 2006, the rest of the Newark campus was put on the market. ===Post-crash focus=== In 2004, Sun canceled two major processor projects which emphasized high instruction-level parallelism and operating frequency.
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.
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.
In August 2005, 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.
It was followed by UltraSPARC IV+ in September 2005 and its revisions with higher clock speeds in 2007.
These CPUs were used in 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.
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, the company released Solaris 10.
Jon Bosak led the creation of the XML specification at W3C. In 2005, Sun Microsystems was one of the first Fortune 500 companies that instituted a formal Social Media program.
In 2006, the rest of the Newark campus was put on the market. ===Post-crash focus=== In 2004, Sun canceled two major processor projects which emphasized high instruction-level parallelism and operating frequency.
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 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.
In July 2006, the Sun Fire X4500 and X4600 systems were introduced, extending a line of x64 systems that support not only Solaris, but also Linux and Microsoft Windows. On January 22, 2007, Sun announced a broad strategic alliance with Intel.
It offers support services on 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.
Sun Studio compilers and tools implemented the OpenMP specification for shared memory parallelization. In 2006, Sun built the TSUBAME supercomputer, which was until June 2008 the fastest supercomputer in Asia.
The symbol was changed in 2007 to JAVA; Sun stated that the brand awareness associated with its Java platform better represented 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.
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.
In January 2007, Sun reported a net GAAP profit of $126 million on revenue of $3.337 billion for its fiscal second quarter.
Petersburg, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Canberra and Trondheim. In 2007–2008, Sun posted revenue of $13.8 billion and had $2 billion in cash.
Sun's stock lost 80% of its value November 2007 to November 2008, reducing the company's market value to $3 billion.
It was followed by UltraSPARC IV+ in September 2005 and its revisions with higher clock speeds in 2007.
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 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.
In July 2006, the Sun Fire X4500 and X4600 systems were introduced, extending a line of x64 systems that support not only Solaris, but also Linux and Microsoft Windows. On January 22, 2007, Sun announced a broad strategic alliance with Intel.
Both packages had native support for the OpenDocument format. ===Virtualization and datacenter automation software=== In 2007, Sun announced the Sun xVM virtualization and datacenter automation product suite for commodity hardware.
Sun built Ranger at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) in 2007.
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.
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 the company's market value to $3 billion.
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 is an SMP capable version of UltraSPARC T2, available in 2 or 4 processor configurations.
Sun also acquired VirtualBox in 2008.
Virtual desktop products included Sun Ray Server Software, Sun Secure Global Desktop and Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. ===Database management systems=== Sun acquired MySQL AB, the developer of the MySQL database in 2008 for US$1 billion.
In February 2008, Sun began to publish results of the MySQL performance optimization work.
In 2008, Sun contributed the source code of the StorageTek 5800 System under the BSD license. Sun announced the Sun Open Storage platform in 2008 built with open source technologies. In late 2008 Sun announced the Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage systems (codenamed Amber Road).
Sun Studio compilers and tools implemented the OpenMP specification for shared memory parallelization. In 2006, Sun built the TSUBAME supercomputer, which was until June 2008 the fastest supercomputer in Asia.
Ranger had a peak performance of over 500 TFLOPS, and was the sixth-most-powerful supercomputer on the TOP500 list in November 2008. Sun announced an OpenSolaris distribution that integrated Sun's HPC products with others. ==Staff== Notable Sun employees included John Gilmore, Whitfield Diffie, Radia Perlman, Ivan Sutherland, and Marc Tremblay.
However, by the time the company was acquired by Oracle, it had outsourced most manufacturing responsibilities. On April 20, 2009, it was announced that Oracle Corporation would acquire Sun for 7.4 billion.
Schwartz was one of the first CEOs of large companies to regularly blog; his postings were frequently quoted and analyzed in the press. == Acquisition by Oracle == On September 3, 2009, the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation into the proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle.
On November 9, 2009, the Commission issued a statement of objections relating to the acquisition of Sun by Oracle.
The Commission's investigation showed that another open database, PostgreSQL, was considered by many users of this type of software as a credible alternative to MySQL and could to some extent replace the competitive strength that the latter currently represents in the database market. Sun was sold to Oracle Corporation in 2009 for $5.6 billion. Sun's staff were asked to share anecdotes about their experiences at Sun.
The deal was completed on January 27, 2010. ==History== 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.
Finally, on January 21, 2010, the European Commission approved Oracle's acquisition of Sun.
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