All is not quiet at Sun

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

It is so amusing to read press releases from Sun Microsystems and IBM. IBM will claim that its eServer pSeries 670, a UNIX server based on the Power4 processors, is more powerful than Sun's top of the line UNIX server, the StarFire 15000. Sun will counter and say the UltraSPARC III-based StarFire system is more powerful than IBM's pSeries. Who would you believe?

Of course, the market will know better. However, for the past year or so, the global IT market has not been very friendly to most industry players, as we all know very well. The September attack in the U.S. and the global recession all prompted a series of reduction in IT spending worldwide. Not surprisingly, almost every IT vendors -- not excluding Sun Microsystems -- had a very discouraging result in the past year.

Sun, for example, reported a US$431 million loss in their Q2 of fiscal year 2002, which ended December 30, 2001. However, there has been some good news for this Palo Alto-based company from research firm Gartner, which reported that Sun had strengthened its domination in the UNIX server segment which happened to be its mainstay, too.

The report said that Sun had a market share of 54 percent in terms of revenue for Q1 of 2002, while IBM lost some ground during the same period and was able to hold on to only 17.2 percent of the market. Other major players in this segment include Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, IBM and Silicon Graphics.

The good thing is that this vendor is not standing still just because the market has been severely punishing it. If it could be used as an indication at all, the recent South Asia Press and Analyst Symposium in Kuala Lumpur, which was packed with IT journalists and analysts from eight countries, had an atmosphere that was as upbeat as it had always been-complete with a Karaoke competition and all. Several top executives from Sun were also there, and they shared information on a wide range of initiatives spearheaded by their company.

One of these initiatives was the Liberty Alliance Project, which we discussed last time. Another was Sun ONE, a Web services initiative that granted would compete with Microsoft .NET much like Liberty Alliance would compete with Microsoft's Passport.

Sun ONE: Incidentally, Sun's deep-seated hostility toward Microsoft has been ongoing for quite some time. The latest attack was the launch of StarOffice 6.0, which promises all facilities available in Microsoft Office for a much lower price. StarOffice Suite is now being offered for users of Windows, Linux and Solaris for $75.00, and the general perception is that Sun intends to undermine Microsoft Office's domination on the desktop productivity applications with this product.

In the beginning, Scott McNeally, the company's Chairman and CEO, used to say that the computer was the network. This showed how central the networked environment for his company. During the symposium, the theme was elevated into "We make the net work for you". This can probably be taken to signify the importance that this company places now on the Net as a place where people go about their work -- including obtaining services.

The idea of providing applications on demand as Web services, for sure, was not a new invention. As has been said before, other industry stalwarts have also come up with the idea. Sun is now focusing its effort to become the chosen platform for Web services with its Sun ONE, which is the abbreviation for Open Net Environment. Other components of its strategy include the just- announced Solaris 9 operating environment -- Sun does not call it Operating System anymore, Java 2.0 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), iPlanet and Forte development tools.

Solaris 9: Servers from Sun Microsystems run a proprietary operating system based on UNIX. Called Solaris, the OS is claimed by the company as the No. 1 UNIX operating system in use today, and around 13,000 applications have been developed to run on it. Top-tier ERP Vendors such as SAP, Oracle and Siebel all have a version of their products for this operating system.

During the symposium, the latest version was unveiled to the attendees by Jim Lee, Sun's director for worldwide product sales and marketing. Jim said that Solaris 9 had 300 new features, which could be grouped into four traditional objectives of any IT infrastructure: Efficiency, availability, security and scalability. The addition of new features such as Secure LDAP client, Sunscreen Firewall, Solaris Security Toolkit and Kerberos V5 Server has led some analysts to wonder whether Sun had actually followed the steps taken by one of its foes, Microsoft, in bundling software together into the operating system and blurring the boundaries between an operating system and applications.

Who are the main customers of Sun servers and Solaris? Some of them are major telecom operators, such as Telekom Malaysia and Excelcomindo in Indonesia. Other industry customers include Siemens and Peugeot Renault, and in fact Sun has also been penetrating the government sectors as well.

Whether Sun will succeed in its Sun ONE strategy remains to be seen, as the industry has heard a number of technological promises in the past, not only from Sun but also from other industry leaders, that have yet to be delivered. For now, however, it is pretty clear that Sun is not going to set just yet.