Sun custom builds enterprise software

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 18 Sep 2003 at 15:25

Sun Microsystems officially unveiled its simplified software suites, under the Java brand, that it will offer pre-customised to individual requirements and which it claims will cost about a quarter of the price of its rivals.

Scott McNealy, CEO at Sun, said: 'The new Sun Java System totally changes the rules and reinforces Sun's commitment to 'systemsness'. Our total focus on delivering systems for network computing that solve customer problems. We're not going to sell you a transmission, a carburetor and a buck of bolts. We're going to build the whole car, and then we're going to thoroughly test it for you and deliver it with a full tank of gas.'

Sun UK's Arlene Adams explained that the company's launch of six new software suites was its effort to address the two major problems it feels companies face today: reducing development time and time to market, and reducing cost.

And so Sun is hoping that the depth and breadth of its new Java-branded Enterprise System (which includes applications, mail and portal servers), Desktop System, Studio Enterprise (developer tools for Enterprise), N1 (network services and applications), Mobility System (phones, PDAs and so on), and Card System (personal authentication) coupled with a price that it claims slices some 70-odd per cent off the cost of rival systems, will prove irresistable to corporates going through a tough period of consolidation.

Rather than charge per processor, Sun is charging per user. So the Sun Java Enterprise System costs $100 per person. If you add the Desktop System, that's another $50 ($100 bought separately) and for the developer tools you're looking at another $5 per person (when bought along with the Enterprise System).

What's more, Sun says it will customise and integrate systems beforehand. That's to say, you buy a single Java product from Sun, tailored from the various Java systems to your needs. Sun then also supplies the training and support.

Sun believes software is overpriced. Adams said that while software companies are unlikely to want to try and change this, Sun is in a unique position to sell its software at what it perceives is the real value as it has the stability of being a hardware company too.

And to this end it has launched plenty of hardware: the V440 server, V250 Tower Server, a Sun Blade 1500 Workstation, as well as additions to its grid computing and Sun Ray thin client ranges.

Even so, as a software company it still has work to do and trails the likes of Microsoft and IBM in the enterprise stakes. Sun says it has already signed up 10 customers.