I was at the Solaris 10 launch for most of Monday, and it was a pretty fantastic day for everyone working on Solaris 10. I spent about two hours helping to answer questions in an online chat — here’s the transcript — about Solaris 10 in what was dubbed a webchat sweatshop. There were a bunch of us from the Solaris group as well as Scott and some other execs all huddled around laptops while the HR folks beat the drum at a slow, but steady pace: These answers have to be on the streets of Hong Kong by morning.
I spent the rest of the afternoon talking to customers and the press — mostly about DTrace — and the exciting thing was that even more than before, they’re getting it and they’re excited about Solaris. One of the most indelible moments was when a group of us from the kernel group were talking to Jem Matzan of The Jem Report and he challenged the claim that Solaris 10 was the most innovative operating system ever. As we all painted the picture of Solaris 10, I realized that this was true. Solaris 10 isn’t just a random collection of neat crap, but it comes together as a cohesive whole that innovates in each and every place an operating system can innovate. Maybe that’s a stretch, but it’s not far off..