Sun's Schwartz cites MySQL's growth rate as incentive
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In deciding to buy MySQL last month, Sun was attracted to the open-source database company's very rapid growth rate and its revenue model, Sun President/CEO Jonathan Schwartz said in a keynote presentation Wednesday at SugarCRM's SugarCon 2008 conference in San Jose, Calif.MySQL was driving real value, innovation, and choice, Schwartz said. Sun agreed to buy the company in a $1 billion deal."What was attractive was how profound their distribution was," Schwartz said. MySQL offers access to about 11 million deployments around the world, and Sun began to see MySQL delivering real value, innovation, and choice, he said. MySQL sells services and support for its database.Asked if Sun planned to scale the MySQL database to compete with Oracle, Schwartz said Sun will not compete with Oracle but "will scale MySQL to extraordinary heights."The future lies in open source, innovation, and freedom of choice, according to Schwartz. Open source, he said, represents choice for CIOs. Developers, meanwhile, are making decisions about what runs in data centers, something that used to be the sole domain of the CIO, said Schwartz.Schwartz also stressed the importance of communities. "With every mainstream asset at Sun, we're investing to create a community," of developers and users regardless of whether they pay any money, he said.Schwartz's being a keynote presenter at the conference presents a bit of irony in that the open-source Sugar CRM package is written in PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) rather than the Java language created and promoted by Sun. But Schwartz noted the Java Virtual Machine is being expanded to accommodate other languages. The JVM enables Java applications to run on platforms supporting the JVM."I think what you'll see from Sun is that we're just going to take the J off the JVM and just make it a VM," Schwartz said. He cited Sun's Da Vinci Machine project, which is an effort to expand language coverage of the JVM.In other developments at the conference, SugarCRM laid out a roadmap of Sugar product releases planned for 2008.Due in April or May, the 5.1 edition of Sugar focuses on SMBs. It will feature improvements in reporting, including about 20 pre-canned reports, as well as a new systems management console via the company's DCE (Data Center Edition) 1.0.Wireless and tracker enhancements also are planned. The tracker will be able to tell who and how many users are online. Also, it will reveal the CRM usage level for a particular team and what modules are being used the most.The 5.2 edition, expected in July, is to feature real-time and global grid capabilities.Sugar 6.0, due in December, will be geared to large enterprises. Included will be portal-enabled partner relationship management and a new calendar with an AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) UI and a recurring meeting capability. Users also can create Web services-based mashups.A Java layer in version 6.0 will link Sugar to other applications, such as the Lucene search engine. DCE 2.0 will debut with advanced resource and systems management.In a morning keynote presentation, SugarCRM co-founder and CEO John Roberts touted a new era in "commercial open source.""We are at the end of the beginning in commercial open source these last four years, and open source is clearly in the mainstream now," Roberts said.SugarCRM founders in 2003 started questioning the proprietary lock-in of software, he said. They left their jobs in 2004 and began SugarCRM, Roberts recalled."We founded [the] Sugar open-source project before we even incorporated the company," Roberts said. The founders, who also include Clint Oram and Jacob Taylor, decided to post code in an effort to write software in a public venue, said Roberts.Roberts cited five forces shaping technology: ideas, willpower and the Internet; belief in the intelligence of crowds, consumerization of IT, cloud computing, and the global language of sharing. "It's exciting, and for me, it's clear that this journey we started on four years ago is real and there really isn't any stopping it," said Roberts. "The best thing I like about it is its focus on innovation," he added.A user of SugarCRM, Eddie White, director of Mania Technologie UK, which makes manufacturing equipment, uses the product as a database for marketing, customer care, and field service support."The investment was very cost-effective in terms of overall license costs," White said."We've been able to create a global database of customers and contacts," he said.Mania is looking to integrate its Sugar installation with its other systems, such as stock control and sales order management systems, White said.The biggest hurdle to deploying Sugar has been getting users to embrace it who had been used to doing things another way, according to White. "It's been easy to use; it's just a question of getting people to change their work practice," he said.While Mania did examine the source code of SugarCRM when doing administrative-level customization, it did not make any changes to the code. The company may do this when it expands use of the product for customer care.SugarCRM announced on Wednesday stack installers that provide a simplified, wizard-based installation for Sugar Community Edition for Solaris and OpenSolaris.
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Analysis: To promote the popularity of its Solaris operating system, Sun must entice developers and mend rifts.
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Mickos and Sun's Green dish the dirt Radio Reg When one of technology's major players lays down $1bn for an open source software maker, the Open Season crew must swing into action. To our credit, we swung in style this week, getting Sun - the acquirer - software chief Rich Green and MySQL - the acquired - CEO Marten Mickos on the horn.â¦
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SEQUENTIAL server revenue at Sun Microsystems has grown faster than the overall market, the firm claimed today. Citing a Gartner Dataquest report, Sun claimed that in the second calendar quarter of this year
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Sun exec: "If we want to keep Java relevant, we have to support this newer programming model."
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Blog: Linux leader seems inclined to take Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz up on his dinner offer, so at least one cultural barrier separating Linux and Solaris looks to be lowering.
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(InfoWorld) - Apparently it's not enough that Sun peppers any and all discussions of its hardware and software products with liberal mentions of its Java programming language, now the vendor wants Wall Street to sit up and take more note of its homegrown technology too. As of Monday, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s ticker on the Nasdaq stock exchange will be Java, as the vendor turns its back on the SUNW ticker, which has served the company since it went public in 1986. Sun announced the upcoming change on Thursday. Sun had its origins on the Stanford campus where three of the California university's graduate students Andy Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla, and Scott McNealy, along with Berkeley graduate Bill Joy, came together to found the company in 1982. The name Sun originally stood for Stanford University Network, while the W indicated Sun's first products: workstations. In a Thursday posting on his blog, Sun president and CEO Jonathan Schwartz heralded the ticker change as recognizing that the Java brand is much better known than Sun, the company behind it. "The number of people who know Java swamps the number of people who know Sun," he wrote, pointing to the technology's ubiquity as it's present in most of today's PCs, mobile devices and embedded systems. While the SUNW symbol is well known in the financial community, it represents "nostalgic value" and "the past," according to Schwartz. By contrast, the Java brand is "inseparably a part of Sun (and our profitability)," he added. Schwartz was careful to state that the ticker name change wasn't indicative of any change in strategy for Sun, which will continue to offer a mix of products. "But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nor a company whose products can be limited by one category -- and Java does a better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other four letter symbol," he wrote. "Java means limitless opportunity -- for our software, systems, storage, service and microelectronics businesses." Initial reactions to Sun's ticker change were mostly unfavorable -- "a terrible idea," "a waste of money," "a stupid move," "a joke," and "worst idea ever," according to most of the comments appended to Schwartz's blog. Commentators saw the Java ticker as limiting, not expressive of Sun's overall product portfolio and also very much yesterday's technology. While Java has been widely adopted, its ubiquity and its 12 years in the market add up to a dated technology, they wrote. Sun began work on what later became Java in 1991 as a project code-named "Oak" initially for use in set-top boxes. The company then re-evaluated the work it had done and repurposed the effort as a new programming language with the mantra of "Write once, run anywhere." In other words, developers could create a program in Java and then have it run without alternation on a wide variety of hardware platforms. Sun unveiled Java in 1995, and, after some initial hiccups, the vendor saw widespread adoption of the language by developers working at all different sizes of companies from very large enterprises to small embedded systems startups. After committing to open-source Java in May 2006,Â Sun finally began making Java freely available in NovemberÂ under both its own open source license, CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License), and the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2). The move is in line with Sun's promise to eventually make more of its software available as open source technologies.
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Sun is reaching out to Linux, and specially Linus Torvalds, in an effort to explain its motives in placing Solaris under GPLv3, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said Wednesday.
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Sun Microsystems is readying an upgrade to its enterprise-level application server and is touting new downloading figures as evidence of the companyâs growing presence in the application server market.
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(InfoWorld) - You've heard of LAMP, the popular open-source infrastructure stack featuring the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server, MySQL's database, and the Perl, Python and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) scripting languages. Well, Sun plans to spotlight a variation on that mixture, replacing Linux with its own Solaris Unix OS as part of its Solaris + AMP, or SAMP, stack for building Web applications. Featured in Sun's rollout on Tuesday are versions of the open-source AMP components optimized for the Solaris 10 OS plus Sun developer tools. The Solaris + AMP unveiling is part of a multifaceted announcement of free development offerings to debut on Tuesday with Sun hoping to sell support as a way to generate revenues. While stressing that Sun was not trying to compete with LAMP itself, Dan Roberts, Sun's director of developer tools marketing, did note that Sun believes its Solaris platform presents a viable competitor to Linux. Developers can build to Apache, MySQL, and the scripting languages but deploy their applications on Solaris or the open-source variant, OpenSolaris, to get advantages such as reliability and security, he said. "We're very much competing [with] Red Hat," and Suse, Roberts said. The company is featuring the PostgreSQL object-relational database as part of the stack along with MySQL. Sun tools and other open-source technologies also are included, and step-by-step instructions on deploying the stack are offered. Analysts recognized Sun's Solaris + AMP effort as a way to entice open-source developers to the Sun camp. "Theyâre trying to make it more comfortable for those who had been working in Linux to consider coming to Solaris as an alternative," said analyst Jean Bozman of IDC. Although IDC does not rank operating systems, Sun does have tools in its Solaris arsenal, such as the DTrace tracing framework and ZFS (Zettabyte File System), that could be attractive to Linux developers, Bozman said. "It's very clear that Sun is going after the same set of developers in the open-source community," as Linux, she said. Making a stronger case for Sun, Andi Mann, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates, said Sun with Solaris + AMP had taken the best parts of the LAMP stack, swapped out Linux with Solaris, and added other open-source technologies. "In terms of standing a chance against LAMP, absolutely, I think it's a very strong offering," Mann said. But Sun faces an obstacle in that Solaris still is considered by some to be a proprietary Unix variant, even if that is not true anymore, Mann said. "It's going to be difficult just to get mind share over Linux," he said. Users of Solaris + AMP also can avail themselves to Sun's Try and Buy program, in which customers can try out Sun hardware for 60 days. Sun also plans to unveil Solaris Express, Developer Edition on Tuesday. "Itâs a new distribution of OpenSolaris specifically targeted at developers on x86 or x64 workstations or Intel AMD-based laptops and workstations," Roberts said. Developers can use the OpenSolaris distribution to build applications that would then be deployed on Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris. "It's just like [how] a Windows developer can deploy a solution that runs on Linux." Roberts said. An integrated environment for developing applications for Solaris, Java, and Web 2.0 is featured, and a simplified install mechanism is part of the package. Also included is an improved Gnome-based desktop and Sun development tools, including Sun Studio 11 and the NetBeans 5.5 IDE. Sun is packaging more than 150 open-source applications with Solaris Express, Developer Edition. The Glassfish application server is featured as well. Also on Tuesday, Sun will offer a second iteration of its Startup Essentials Program for startup firms to use discounted Sun hardware and Solaris. New to the program is the inclusion of storage solutions and low-end SPARC systems. Discounts have been 60 percent to 70 percent less than list prices. Through its Sun Developer Expert Assistance Program, Sun offers support for $49 per request. An annual subscription featuring support for unlimited requests costs $249.
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(InfoWorld) - A Sun Microsystems executive said the $13 billion technology company should be able to handle a possible slowdown in information technology (IT) spending better than some of its larger rivals. John Fowler, senior vice president of Sun's Systems Group, which sells servers and related products, responded Tuesday to a research report forecasting slower growth for global IT spending in 2007. Forrester ResearchÂ forecasts worldwide spending on IT goods and services to grow by only 5 percent next year, after two consecutive years of 8 percent growth. Forrester said 5 percent would be the weakest growth rate since 2003. Fowler, in an interview with technology reporters, said larger rivals such as Hewlett-Packard, which finished its fiscal year with $91.7 billion in revenue, IBM, forecast to make $90.72 billion, and Dell, $58 billion, are more vulnerable to macroeconomic conditions than the smaller Sun. "We can, in a weaker market, gain ground in market share by virtue of product and execution, which is what has been happening," Fowler said. He noted that when the worldwide server market grew by just 0.6 percent in the second quarter of this year, Sun's revenue grew by 15.5 percent, according to a report from the research firm IDC. In the third quarter, when the server market grew only 3.5 percent, Sun's revenue grew 15.8 percent. "You have to pay attention to macroeconomics but...if you were a $60 to $70 billion company, the macroeconomics affect you [more] dramatically," Fowler said. However, Sun's server shares have been in the low double digits and the company has been reporting net losses in recent quarterly reports. Forrester said sales in the U.S., in particular, will be weak as chief information officers at companies reduce spending in the coming year. "This is a caution flag for IT vendors, 2007 will be a challenging environment," said Andrew Bartels, vice president of Forrester Research, in a prepared statement.
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At the helm of Sun Microsystems Inc., Jonathan Schwartz became "un blogeur" last week when he started publishing his blog in French and nine other languages.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President Jonathan Schwartz made it clear Wednesday what kind of customers his company hopes to lure now that long-troubled Sun finally appears to be in the middle of an upswing. "There are two customers we see [in the market]," Schwartz said, speaking at a Sun product launch event in New York. "Customers that look at information technology as a competitive weapon, and those that look at information technology as a cost center. We're obsessed with and focused on the former." Calling New York the "epicenter for those kind of customers" because of the technology-savvy financial services firms and media companies that have headquarters there, Schwartz outlined some of the positives for his company since he assumed the CEO position a little over 100 days ago. While his first 100 days "honeymoon is over," according to Schwartz, Sun is just beginning to see the fruits of a comeback strategy it's been crafting since it took the dot.com bust on the chin in 2001. The company seems to be finally climbing -- albeit slowly -- out of its unprofitable rut, and has shown promising revenue growth over the last couple of quarters as it cut costs by shedding employees. Schwartz said the company even expects to achieve sustainable profitability by its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends June 30, 2007. Schwartz had little new to report about the company's overall strategy, although Sun Wednesday launched some storage and server products -- and one, called "Thumper," that is a hybrid of the two. In a message he's been trumpeting for years, the new CEO continued to stress Sun's commitment to offering a mix of hardware systems, software, storage and services, and helping customers combine those products in heterogeneous IT environments so Sun's products run seamlessly alongside competitive offerings. Schwartz pointed to the success of Sun's open-source version of its Solaris OS as proof that Sun is happy to play well with others if it means winning customers. He said since the company open sourced Solaris last year, nearly 70 percent of its implementations have been on competing hardware from IBM Corp., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., not Sun's own servers. Sun to date has distributed nearly 6 million licenses for OpenSolaris, Schwartz added. One analyst who attended Wednesday's event said it was not meant to be a new product-driven launch. Instead, said Jonathan Eunice, an analyst with Illuminata, the event was to show that Sun's investment in open source and new products over the past several years, including its early adoption of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron chips for its Galaxy server line, is finally beginning to pay off. Sun Wednesday sent a message that it's on the right path now and has something compelling to offer customers who shied away from it since it hit hard times, he said. "This is a drumbeat event," Eunice said. "This was not about the product pipeline, but about customer connections. [This is Sun saying], 'We continue to do the work, continue to get back with quality customers.'" Sun's announcement Wednesday that it has renewed its relationship with systems integrator Accenture Ltd., which is setting up an identity management practice on Sun's technology, is particularly important to reaching new customers or some it has lost since its downturn, Eunice said. "It's a very critical way for Sun to get new business and revenue," he said of the Accenture deal.
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Sun Microsystems is exploring a margin-negative model for hardware in order to win more business and solution providers should be preparing for that scenario, said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun president and COO.
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Sun Microsystems will pay $1 billion for Swedish software company MySQL, whose open-source database is used for some of the most widely visited Web sites in the world.
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Pushes the blue elephant EnterpriseDB, the opens source database company, aims to capitalize on the uncertainty around MySQL's purchase by Sun Microsystems, and is wooing developers with improved capabilities and services.â¦
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Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz thinks the company's move to open-source software products like Java and Solaris will help drive sales of its new line of modular blade servers.