Add to this the fact that Solaris has consistently shipped on more platforms than any other UNIX operating system (such as AIX and HP-UX) and we have a monstrous installed base that is expanding incredibly quickly. For example, according to IDC, for 2004 the leading worldwide UNIX Operating System in terms of units shipped was Solaris and in the first quarter of 2005? yep, it was Solaris.

When we originally made Solaris available for download, we had no idea of the level of interest we'd see. I was pretty sure it would be significant but you just never know with these things. Add to that the fact that the download went live on the first morning of our annual analysts conference (where we had already told all the attendees that we had just gone live and we'd keep them updated throughout the day), it was just a little bit nerve wracking.

Fortunately, within an hour I got a call to say we'd grossly underestimated the demand and were frantically adding more resources to the download center to keep up. Not only that but someone had already put a DVD they'd burned up on ebay and it was trading at $25. By the end of the first day we had over 70,000 registered licenses distributed and it hasn't really slowed down since.

6 months later as I sit and look at the list of companies that have registered licenses for Solaris 10 it makes for very interesing reading. Virtually the entire Fortune 100 is there with many of them installing hundreds and thousands of copies. The stand out for me is the number of major competitors that made it onto the list, on opening day there was more than one in the top 10, no doubt they were just looking for inspiration...

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