Sun

Though most of us had to watch our wallets last year, some didn't mind spending $3 million or more for a new supercomputer.

The overall market for high-performance computers (HPCs) and servers fell last year, bringing in sales of $8.6 billion, an 11.6 percent drop from $9.7 billion in 2008, according to the "Worldwide High Performance Technical Server QView" report released Wednesday by IDC. Shipments were down 40 percent from the prior year.

But one segment unfazed by the recession was the supercomputer. Sales of HPCs costing more than $3 million jumped by 65 … Read more

MEMC Electronic Materials subsidiary SunEdison announced Thursday it has received final approval from the Italian government to build a 72-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant.

The solar services company has found a home for its plant just outside Rovigo, Italy, a city roughly halfway between Bologna and Venice. The choice is not surprising given the community's many progressive green policies and initiatives already in progress.

Rovigo's motto is "the city of change" and it's a member of CLEAR (City and Local Environmental Accounting Reporting), an EU project in which member towns and cities pledge environmental accounting … Read more

Perhaps retirement doesn't suit former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Just weeks into his post-Sun life, Schwartz offers some delicious anecdotes in a blog post, summarizing Apple's and Microsoft's threats to sue Sun for patent infringement as more about bluster than substance.

But that's not the lesson I learn from Schwartz's commentary.

Instead, what is immediately obvious to me is that a) the technology industry is a morass of conflicting patent claims, b) since there's really no way to completely avoid others' patents the best defense is to have a hefty counterbalancing patent portfolio … Read more

Fulfilling a 10-year ambition, Larry Ellison's sailing team won the America's Cup sailing race Sunday near Valencia, Spain.

The BMW Oracle Racing team used a triple-hulled craft called a trimaran sporting a giant vertical airfoil rather than a conventional sail. The airfoil works on the same principal an airplane wing, only it pushes the boat along through the water while a horizontal wing on a plane lifts the plane up.

"It's absolutely an awesome feeling," Ellison said in a statement. James Spithill, a 30-year-old from Australia, was skipper of the boat; Ellison was listed in … Read more

An Atlas 5 rocket boosted NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory into orbit Thursday, kicking off an $850 million mission to study the physics of the sun and the titanic magnetic storms, flares, and explosions that drive space weather across the solar system.

Using three sophisticated instruments that will collect enormous amounts of data over short time scales, scientists hope to improve their ability to predict the onset of major flares and other phenomena that can disrupt communications, satellite navigation, and power grids.

"SDO will observe the sun almost continuously for more than five years, sending back data at an … Read more

U.S. solar-panel manufacturer SunPower has signed an agreement to acquire SunRay Renewable Energy and its existing solar projects for $277 million, both companies announced Thursday.

The maker of high-efficiency solar panels said approximately $235 million of the deal will be in cash, which SunPower announced it already has in hand, forgoing the need to raise equity capital to finance the deal. The remaining $42 million will be in the form of credit and promissory notes.

SunRay, a European solar-power company, might be best known for its completion in November of the 24-megawatt Montalto di Castro solar-photovoltaic power plant, the … Read more

Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems' chief executive until January, has accelerated the pace of his public communications from blogging to the even faster-twitch Twitter medium. But he's also considering slowing it down by writing a book.

"I'm thinking of writing a book about my experiences as Sun's CEO (will not be in haiku). What would you like to read about?" Schwartz asked in a tweet on Monday.

The haiku comment refers to Schwartz's parting tweet as Sun CEO, in which he blamed the economy for the fact that Sun was acquired by Oracle rather than remaining independent: &… Read more

Software heavyweight Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems has (and will have) a wide impact on the technology market.

Oracle's strategy of targeting an "all in one" relationship with its customers--providing hardware, software, and services--is something to which the rest of the high-technology industry will have to pay close attention. Modeling yourself after the "IBM of the 1960s" is not a bad target, especially when you consider market share.

However, when it comes to cloud computing, Oracle has taken a fairly "arm's length" position. CEO Larry Ellison's famous "cloud is fashion" rant … Read more

For a reason beyond any fathom I can measure, I failed to follow Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz on Twitter. Now I am attempting to kick myself. I am missing.

You see, Schwartz decided that the best way to tell folks that he was leaving Sun-- recently purchased by Oracle seemingly because Larry Ellison still can't find a hostile way to grab the Golden State Warriors by their Nikes--was to confirm rumors of his departure in a tweet.

"Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it," he wrote at Twitter.com/OpenJonathan. Then … Read more