Sun Rolls Out Products To Fill Storage GapSun Rolls Out Products To Fill Storage Gap

Sun Microsystems, under pressure to diversify as competitors challenge its dominance in the Unix server market, Wednesday unveiled hardware, software, and services meant to jump-start storage sales. Sun claims its new products offer a lower total cost of ownership than products from rivals such as EMC, IBM, and Compaq, all of which are ahead of Sun in the $7 billion-a-year global server-storage market, according to the Yankee Group.

Driving total cost of ownership is Sun's strategy of offering all the components of a storage system in one package. "It's complete," Sun president and chief operating officer Ed Zander said at a news conference in San Francisco, where the company is meeting with financial analysts this week. "The big message today is complete storage solution."

The new hardware includes the Sun StorEdge 3900 and 6900 series for the low- and midrange markets, respectively, and an update of the high-end 9900 series, which Sun guarantees can deliver "100% data availability." Sun execs say the company has already sold 200 of the 9900 servers and will sell 300 more by June. The company also unveiled its next-generation file systems, the Sun StorEdge QFS and SAM-FS software. New features include concurrent server access to the same file, the ability to scale a single file system to 252 terabytes, and enhancements for rapid disaster recovery. Sun also introduced services to help customers install and implement storage systems. In addition, the company disclosed the opening of new Sun storage centers in Singapore, Scotland, and Colorado.

Product diversification has become more important to Sun as Wall Street becomes increasingly concerned with the competitive pressure the company is feeling in its core server business. Many analysts believe Sun is being squeezed by IBM in the high-end market, while servers running Linux, an open-source operating system, and Microsoft's Windows are making inroads into the midrange market. In the near term, Sun sees EMC as its biggest competitor in the storage market, but believes it will compete more and more with IBM in providing full storage systems. "Long term, I look at the system vendors," Zander said.

Sun stock closed Wednesday on the Nasdaq at $9.58, down 57 cents, or 5.62%.