Sun Microsystems

Sun's quest to help telcos

LAS VEGAS--Sun Microsystems co-founder and Chairman Scott McNealy wants to help phone companies become "destinations," he said during a speech at the NXTcomm trade show here Wednesday.

Specifically, he wants to help these companies develop their businesses around services and content rather than simply providing connectivity to other Web sites on the Net. Sun provides the server technology and data center management services necessary to distribute content on the Web.

As part of its ongoing effort to help phone companies evolve their businesses in the next generation of the Internet, Sun announced on Wednesday a new version of … Read more

OpenOffice 3 beta: More compatibility, new features

Sun Microsystems has released the first beta for OpenOffice.org 3 for Windows and Mac. The new version of OpenOffice, which is a popular open-source competitor to Microsoft Office, looks to offer users improvements on every component from interface to features to behavior.

OpenOffice now natively supports OS X, so Mac users won't have to install the X11 module before running the suite. Full Vista support is also included in the beta, and didn't cause any problems during light testing. Notably, OpenOffice 3 includes filters for the new Microsoft Office document formats such as DOCX and XLSX as … Read more

Sun launches bundled OpenSolaris in latest push for developer support

SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Microsystems gave developers a gift at the CommunityOne developer conference on Monday--a packaged version of OpenSolaris with a new logo. Now, Sun is hoping developers will return the favor by creating applications to run on the open-source version of its Solaris operating system and thus drive more demand for its servers and software.

The move is the latest in Sun's effort in the better part of a decade to regain relevance in a post-dot-com bust world by transforming into an open source player. Borrowing a trick from Microsoft and its own early successes with Java, Sun … Read more

Sun launches OpenSolaris, inks deal with Amazon

Sun Microsystems on Monday said it has released OpenSolaris, an open source version of its Solaris operating system, and announced a deal with Amazon.com.

The OpenSolaris project has been under development for more than three years. Sun hopes to popularize the operating system with developers, students and other traditional Linux users.

In addition, Sun said it has partnered with Amazon.com to release OpenSolaris as an on-demand service as part of Amazon.com's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). OpenSolaris will be available for operating system and storage services as part of the overall EC2 service, which starts at 10 … Read more

After unprofitable quarter, Sun to cut jobs

Update 4:02 p.m. PT: I corrected the revenue Sun reported for the quarter. It was $3.266 billion. Update 3:11 p.m. PT: I added more detail on Sun's employee total and after-hours trading.

IBM, Intel, and Google have been immune to the economic slowdown, but Sun Microsystems wasn't.

The server and software company on Thursday announced grim results for its fiscal third quarter, which ended March 30, that showed declining revenue and a swing to a net loss.

Sun Chief Financial Officer Mike Lehman also said the company will cut 1,500 to 2,… Read more

Jonathan Schwartz: A top blogger sees end to blogging

SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz rightly gets credit for pioneering the corporate blog as a tool to reach customers, employees, and others. But pretty soon the novelty of his methods will wear off, he predicted.

"At some point the word 'blogging' will be anachronistic," Schwartz said at the Web 2.0 Expo here in San Francisco. "I communicate."

And he predicted, in effect, that the rest of the executive world will catch up. "Historically, communication took place by being a celebrity CEO who met with heads of state, and got the local media to … Read more

Update: Sun confirms it's buying Montalvo

Sun Microsystems has confirmed it bought Montalvo Systems, but probably for a lot less than venture capitalists plunked into the company.

"Montalvo's assets will be integrated into Sun's Microelectronics business unit. We believe acquiring these assets will enhance the current and future products we are developing and expect them to contribute to future generations of Sun's microprocessor technology which will in turn drive additional differentiation for Sun's Systems products, a company representative wrote in an e-mail.

"We are not disclosing the terms of the deal as it is not material with respect to earnings … Read more

Sun sealing up deal for Montalvo

Sun is putting the finishing touches on its purchase of stealthy chip start-up Montalvo Systems.

As first reported by CNET News.com, Sun started conducting serious negotiations with Montalvo at the beginning of the month. The formal announcement is expected soon.

Montalvo has designed a low-power, multiple core chip for portable computers. The chip can run the same software as processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, but consume less power. The trick is that the cores on the chip are asymmetrical: some are high-powered for complex problems while others that handle basic tasks consume little power.

The market for … Read more

Sun offers fast track to online apps

Sun Microsystems is launching a program to help software makers convert their existing, on-premise applications into software-as-a-service offerings.

The Solaris On Demand program, announced on Wednesday, is targeted at independent software vendors. Sun offers the software, hosting and services to convert applications. Sun says it is partnering with NaviSite. AT&T's USi Communications, and NTT Europe to provide hosting services.

Sun, along with partners, will offer a 90-day proof-of-concept trial to give independent software vendors access to hosting, hardware managed services, and backup services. The company guarantees a service level agreement of 99.5 percent uptime.

The service … Read more