[sn1de]

The x86 hardware and the Linux OS both had to make the jump to 64 bit. Sun was still able to make hay in the period where Linux was well established because 32 bit memory restrictions kept if from being a viable option for a lot of higher end computing needs. It was inevitable that Linux would eventually make the migration to 64 bit once the hardware was there, but Sun got there first on both the hardware and software fronts. Why Sun didn't react more radically when 64 bit Lintel was able to go head to head with Sun's precious 'enterprise' solutions is unknown to me. Maybe they were just in mass denial? Maybe they thought the technical hight priests within their organization would manifest new technical advantages? Maybe they just knew that if they dropped their pricing to address the new price/performance reality that their company was no longer economically viable? There was a lot of denial about Linux at the time, and there were plenty of legitimate reasons to question whether or not Linux could really make the leap to compete head to head with the leading commercial Unix offerings. Meanwhile, major efforts were being made by the likes of IBM and, ironically, Oracle, to contribute to efforts to make Linux a 'no compromise' commercial offering. Remember that companies like IBM had watched their own Unix offerings suffer from Solaris on the high end and Linux on the low end. The smart ones realized that Linux could be the answer to the hard sell they were running into with their own Unix and put engineering efforts towards making that happen. I'm not saying Linux wouldn't have gotten there without them, but there was a strategic shift that happened to accelerate the technical ascension of Linux, and that also caught Sun off guard. I suspect they had looked at the historical trajectory of Linux and over estimated how long it would take Linux to 'catch up' to Solaris. Linux went 'hockey stick' on Sun.

[remote_phone]

No. AMD64 wasn’t as popular especially in enterprise environments until just before Intel started to support it. Intel had the failed Itanium but that wasn’t the reason for Linux’s success. Linux on 32bit was still dominant at that point and the cause.

I was supporting a cross-platform enterprise environment and was deep into this at the time. I saw it from the front line’s and I even implemented my company’s port to Linux. Everyone was skeptical about Itanium. Enterprises companies in most part didn’t have the luxury to experiment.