Solaris runs on x86 as well as SPARC.
It seems pretty clear that Larry wanted Sun for its software
and tried selling off its hardware business to HP, IBM etc
but found no takers.
SPARC is now a distant fourth in non-x86 servers, behind
Power, IPF, and z and losing altitude fast. By pounding his
chest loudly and proclaiming it is standing behind Sun's
hardware business 110% Larry can probably slow down the
rate of SPARC's decline to something closer to what it was
(around -5% a year) before it became known that Sun was
shopping itself around.
Even if by some miracle Sun was able to reverse SPARC's
slide to oblivion the inherent margins of server hardware
are far lower than what Oracle is used to achieving from
its software acquisitions. Unless of course Oracle simply
jacks SPARC hardware pricing way up. That would tend to
accelerate market share loss but the SPARC user base is
large and by now largely consists of the locked in hard
core and could be profitably milked for many years more
with minimal investment in new designs.
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