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 licences 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 Windows servers.
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 licences 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 Windows servers.