Sun's Solaris 8 rolls into beta

Sun Microsystems Inc. today shipped the first beta of Solaris 8, the next major upgrade to the company's network operating system.

Solaris 8 will run on both Intel Corp. and SPARC platforms for 300 customers and software vendors in the first beta phase. Sun will focus on application compatibility with the early beta version of Solaris 8. It will include an "AppCert" testing tool to ensure users that their current Solaris applications can run on the new platform without modification, according to officials in Palo Alto, Calif.

Other improvements in the Solaris platform, which is widely deployed in the service provider community, include new management and Java enhancements, officials said.

While only select customers will receive the first beta of Solaris 8, the AppCert tool and other information on the platform is available for free download.

Sun is at www.sun.com.