While its easy to see the simple genius of Project Blackbox (the simple genius represented by the “why hasn’t somebody already thought of this?!” statement when you first see something of this nature), there was one question that I had in the back of my mind that left me wondering if this would become a *nix niche market leader, or a true pioneering platform bound to take the Lions Share of the data-center market.

The question: What are my operating system options?

The answer is contained in the following 2minute:22second clip from Jonathan Schwartz,

[video] Schwartz on Sun’s new movable server | CNET News.com

From Oracle OpenWorld 2006: Sun President Jonathan Schwartz discusses his company’s new movable server and supercomputer, the Sun Blackbox.

For those of you who don’t have the same mentioned 2:22 to spare (though when you do, it’s worth every second of your investment to watch)…

Windows, Linux, and/or Solaris.

I’m obviously a bit late to the game on this one, as the above video was from a week ago, and obviously this information was available around the same time as the initial announcement. None-the-less, its one of those questions I have had lingering in the back of my head, and until now, didn’t know the answer.

Extending from this a bit,

It’s my own opinion that while dabbling in the software business if your a hardware company, or dabbling in the hardware business if your a software company is fine, attempting to dominate any given market by providing both the hardware and the software infrastructure will limit your overall ability to penetrate any given market. Apple continues to prove this year after year after year, hanging on to their 3->4->5<-4<-3% market share, never having been able to burst through the seams and take over one or the other markets in which they compete.

With this in mind, one might ask: What then is the secret to penetrating any given market if the focus is primarily that of providing either a hardware solution or a software solution, but (generally speaking) not both?

The answer: (And for most of you this one is obvious.) The channel.

In other words, the more incentive you can provide for other people to sell your product for you, the greater chance you have of penetrating any given market. Microsoft continues to prove this year in and year out, so it’s not as if this is any great secret.

In many ways you could liken this unto giving someone a blackbox, — letting them add value however they might see fit, i.e. — Here is an operating system. Let us take it and add value by building hardware that this operating system can run on, providing greater value than there would or even could be if it was just the operating system by itself.

In many ways you could liken this unto giving someone a “Project Blackbox” — letting them add value however they might see fit, i.e. — Here is some hardware. Let us take it and add value by building software that can run on this hardware, providing greater value than there would or even could be if it was just the hardware by itself.

I’m glad to see that Sun has chosen this direction. There is not a single doubt in my mind that “Project Blackbox” is bound for greatness. Truly a remarkable product without *ANY* doubt!

NOTE: Some of you might be asking “What’s going to stop IBM or Dell or HP or etc… from coming in and creating a blackbox data-center of their own?”

The answer: Have you seen Sun’s hardware line-up? From power consumption to processing power and everywhere in between, nobody even comes close to what Sun has to offer. While anybody can buy a shipping container and throw a rack of servers into it, unless that same mentioned rack is full of Sun-built hardware, and is powered and cooled by the same power and cooling system contained in one of these babies –

Well — good luck with that, cuz “Your going to need it! Bwaah ha ha ha ha ha.” ;)