A significant installed base uses the software for a variety of Web and application services. Application specific appliances rely on Solaris on Intel for Web traffic, security, and database. Solaris software on the Intel platform is installed at many universities and corporate training programs for Solaris development and administration training. In addition, Sun is working to ensure that the strength of the Solaris Operating Environment is complemented by a collection of freely available software. This freeware includes utilities, productivity tools, and development tools.
Users can now more conveniently leverage the technologies shared on the Internet.
Some open source applications are included and supported with Solaris software, such as the defacto standard Apache Web server. Other popular programs such as Samba, a leading open source file and print services application, are available on the Solaris Software Companion CD or via download . Solaris users can further expand their application portfolios by running Linux binaries without modification via lxrun a freely downloadable utility that executes Linux applications on the Solaris Operating Environment, Intel Platform Edition. Lxrun is a software layer that sits between Solaris and the Linux Intel binary executable, and remaps system calls on the fly to allow them to run unmodified on Solaris. Enhancing Platform Support Market research also shows that the vast majority of the installed base is implementing on desktops and servers with one or two CPUs.