Sun launches Intel-32-bit chip servers

SAN FRANCISCO: Network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday introduced two server computers that use Intel Corp. microprocessors, part of its effort to catch up with the trend toward lower-cost computing.

Since the burst of the dot-com and telecommunications bubble in late 2000 and the slow economy, companies have slashed their information technology budgets and are telling Sun, IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Computer Corp. that they must do more with less.

Typically, computer servers that use so-called 64-bit chips -- for which Sun is best known -- are more expensive than machines that use Intel's 32-bit microprocessors. Sun has in the past several months become more aggressive in telling analysts and customers that it is also a low-cost provider of hardware, software and services.

"Maybe we got overfired up" about ever-more-powerful 64-bit computers that cost $1 million or more and other complex and powerful computing architectures during the dot-com and telecom boom, Chairman and Chief Executive Scott McNealy said at a press conference on Monday in San Francisco.

McNealy -- who was on stage with long-time partner Larry Ellison, chairman and chief executive of the second-largest independent software maker after Microsoft, Oracle Corp. -- also said that Sun and Oracle have deepened and extended their 20-year-long partnership.

Oracle and Sun will also launch an advertising campaign with the tagline, "Oracle makes Sun unbreakable."

All of Oracle's Sun software -- its database software and software to automate financial, human resources, supply-chain management, and other company functions -- will now run on all of Sun's computing platforms.

Sun sells systems that use its own UltraSparc processors and its Solaris version of the Unix operating system, computers that use Solaris running on Intel-compatible chips and boxes that run the popular Linux operating system on Intel chips.

"It's all-around low cost," McNealy told Reuters in an interview before the news conference, adding that with the announcements on Monday Sun is more aggressively going after IBM machines that run its AIX version of Unix and HP machines that use its HP-UX version of Unix.

HP is phasing out HP-UX and the Alpha chips it inherited from Compaq. HP is placing its bets on Intel Itanium 64-bit processor, which it co-developed with Intel.

"We're making a real run at AIX and HP-UX," McNealy told Reuters. Sun also said that it had agreed with Unix software provider Red Hat to distribute its enterprise Linux operating system, and that Red Hat will in turn distribute Sun's Java Virtual Machine -- a software tool that allows Java programs to run -- with its Red Hat Linux software.

Sun's new servers are called the Sun Fire V60x and V65x and are priced at $2,450 and $2,650, respectively. McNealy said that they cost about 25 percent less than comparable products than IBM or HP and even cost less than Dell, which has made market share and profit gains on the back of its low-cost, direct-distribution business model.

Sun shares closed at $4.14, down 3.7 percent on the Nasdaq, where it was the second most actively traded issue.

© Reuters