[OT]: Sun's Outlook Brightens
From: John Smith (a_at_nonymous.com)
Date: 08/05/04
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Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 17:48:47 -0400
http://www.techweb.com/tech/ebiz/20040805_ebiz
Sun's Outlook Brightens
By Don St. John
The temptation to write off Sun Microsystems over the past couple of years
was frequently a strong one. The once-dominant company has been in the
doldrums for what seems like forever, as market share slipped away to
powerful, non-proprietary server hardware, and open-source software gained
traction at the expense of Sun's Solaris platform. And that's not even
counting the long, costly antitrust battle against Microsoft that Sun
finally settled earlier this year.
But there are signs that Sun's long day's journey into night might finally
be ending. The company seems energized by its closure with Microsoft. It's
seeing solid response to new pricing models for hardware and software that
break it out of a long-time straitjacket. Sales are up in the wake of what
Gartner terms a "hot server market"; its sales-channel partners are
testifying to the company's execution in turning around channel problems;
and it is thinking outside the box, as evidenced by a one-week sale of
low-end Opteron servers via eBay. On top of all that, Sun is extending its
Java Enterprise System across numerous platforms. New life for its Java
products, in particular, would be a sign that its decision to break off the
Microsoft suit and focus on its own business was a smart one.
There have even been reports that Sun is feeling frisky enough to take a
shot at buying Novell and, thus, acquiring the SuSE Linux operating system,
which would strengthen its hand in the open-source game. That comes on top
of moves to open up Solaris itself. Although observers discount the notion
that Sun could make the numbers work on such a deal, even the fact that such
a rumor is being bandied about suggests that the market is seeing life in
Sun that hasn't been there for a while. That's not too bad for a company
that many thought had lost its way for a long time.
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