Sun looks to spice up its product lines with new “Enchilada” servers, a storage management component for its N1 Data Platform and collaboration software that includes its own instant messenger. Can CEO Scot McNealy chart his company out of the shadows?Read the extensive coverage of Sun news at ZDNews.com, plus the 30-minute video with McNealy.
Additionally, Sun Microsystems will likely adopt the Opteron processor from Advanced Micro Devices as it extends into new branches of the server market.
On a guest editorial at News.com, Jonathan Schwartz of Sun writes “Open source versus open standards“: The term “open” has been used and abused by the purveyors of technology for a couple of decades now, so it should come as no surprise that technology users are taking their turn.
Sun changes strategy more often than I change my underware! <– I do that often!
Well, the Opteron side of things has more or less been discussed in depth here: [i]http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3174
I think Sun has a major price issue as far as TI being their chip manufacturer goes. UltraSPARCs are outrageously expensive because of this.
I had a processor in one of my Ultra 60s go out the other day. It’s beyond warranty and we don’t have a service contract. Sun sells replacements for $5500: http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/results.jhtml?catid=61835&lineId=2…
For $1500 less (~$4000), we could purchase a Dell dual 3.06GHz Pentium 4 Xeon system with a 533MHz system bus, HyperThreading, and 2MB cache per processor (as opposed to 4MB on the single 450MHz UltraSPARC II) and with 1GB of DDR RAM, a 72GB Ultra320 SCSI hard drive, and an 18″ LCD. This system would come with 3 years of parts + onsite labor, the same as the Ultra 60 when we bought it.
I think few will argue that the Dell is the all around better system, especially considering this gets us a faster system and another 3 years of warranty. Furthermore, it’s an ideal system for what we use it for: a highly CPU bound, low I/O atmospheric modelling program.
Unfortunately this is where Sun is stuck. Sun and Solaris are built around SPARC, but SPARC is quickly becoming a very overpriced alternative. Sun needs to look for partners quickly who can manufacture their processors cheaper. My suggestion would be AMD, considering Sun wants to use Opterons in low-cost x86 servers.
My suggestion would be AMD, considering Sun wants to use Opterons in low-cost x86 servers.
(also, sorry for the italics on the previous post. If only Eugenia would implement a preview feature for posts…)
On second thought, AMD already has a strategic alliance with IBM, and because of that probably wouldn’t (couldn’t) partner with Sun.
Sun changes strategy more often than I change my underware! <– I do that often!
Thats because the enviroment keeps changing at a fast cycle, and well… basically its a matter of administration principles going on around that, you know…
OTOH I totally agree with Bascule, Ive been around Sun hardware and its really a pity seeing that high prices are f#@$# things up with SPARC and UltraSPARC. I totally dig solaris and it would be a shame installing it on an ix86. But what else can we do? money money money…
Sun has been promoting Open Standards for ever. Right from the beginning with NFS, they open the spec, compete on implementation. In fact, OSS seems to be a logical extension of Sun’s position.
Also, an AMD chip isn’t so odd either. Their PC cards (the SunPCI ones) were AMD K6s and their Qube systems (bought from Cobalt) were based on AMD processors.
Sun has repeated that they are committed to the Sparc processor. After reading the very cool article posted here a few weeks ago about Sun’s multi-core Sparc 4 and VII processors, I have no doubt that the Sparc CPU will be in use for ages yet.
Sun’s a pretty cool company. I’ll admit, their on-again off-again stance WRT Linux and Solaris X86 is frustrating, but their overall goals have been largely unchanged for ages now.
Oh, and BTW, Sun has made the occasional Non-Sparc processor for decade now.
Ben
that is exactly what I said when the Solaris manager was interviewed. outsource chip production to UMC and TSMC, as for computer assembly, get it done in a cheaper country. Why assemble machines in the third most expensive country to do business in, namely the US?