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Sun to bundle software, offer as free downloads

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CIOL Bureau
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Duncan Martell



SAN FRANCISCO: Sun Microsystems Inc. said on Wednesday it will bundle much of

its software and provide it free to customers, the latest tweak by the computer

maker to its business model in an effort to return to growth.



Sun said that its Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 management software and

developer tools will be available for free. A year ago, Sun started offering its

Solaris version of the Unix operating system for free.



"This is all about eliminating the barriers to revenue," said Sun Chief

Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz in a telephone interview. "This is a result

of our decision to opensource Solaris and run on everybody's hardware."



Although more of Sun's software will now be free, customers will have to pay

for service and support, which is how Sun aims to boost revenue. It also hopes

that with the more than 3.4 million downloads of Solaris, customers will be

inclined to buy more of Sun's hardware and storage gear.



Sun, of Santa Clara, California, had the clear lead in the dot-com boom of

the late 1990s and the venerable Silicon Valley company could not keep its

high-performing servers on the shelves amid soaring demand.



Then the bubble burst, Sun fell behind competitors and lost revenue and

market share to rivals including Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and

International Business Machines Corp.



Sun has since fought back with industry-standard servers using Advanced Micro

Devices Inc.'s Opteron microprocessor, which are growing rapidly, albeit from a

small base. Sun will also soon be selling servers using its T1 microprocessor,

which was code-named Niagara, that it recently announced.



With Wednesday's announcement, Sun said it was integrating all of the

now-free software along with its Solaris operating system and will call it the

Solaris Enterprise System.



In a statement, Schwartz said that "100 percent of our customers are

deploying web infrastructures and asking for relief from onerous licenses and

system integration activity."



Sun is hoping that the combination of new business models, hardware and

software offerings, along with its service and support offerings, will reignite

growth and help regain ground lost to the freely available Linux operating

system and Microsoft Corp. Windows servers.

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