Sun said Wednesday that it will offer free access to its Java server
suite and N1 management software and bundle them with its Solaris operating system.The software being offered for no cost are the Java Enterprise System set of server middleware, Java development tools and N1 management software. Sun said it will still charge for support.
"Free is the lowest barrier to entry for acquiring a product... This is a way to get barriers to go down and revenues to go up," Sun's president Jonathan Schwartz said in a conference call. "We're going to be driving for volume first and foremost, then figuring the right service to monetise that volume."
The move will create a single package called the Solaris Enterprise System. It will include Solaris 10, the PostgreSQL open source database, the Java Enterprise System server software and tools, Sun N1-branded provisioning and management tools and Secure Desktop software.
Sun's revamped strategy will help it transform to a services-based software business, but it's not clear that it will lead to big financial successes, Illuminata analyst Jonathan Eunice said. "I have no doubt that Sun can replace current product revenue with services revenue. The question is, how can it gain share, profits and revenue robustly?" he said.
As yet, unlike rivals such as IBM and Microsoft, Sun's software group still hasn't engaged business partners, Eunice said. Partnerships with other software companies and resellers add more products to the mix.
The company is an outsider in the infrastructure software area, a business dominated by IBM, Microsoft, BEA, Oracle and open source products such as JBoss. Sun has tried for years to boost its software's success through aggressive pricing and acquisitions of companies such as NetDynamics, CentreRun, Pixo and, most recently, SeeBeyond.
Approach to open source
In a statement, Schwartz said that the decision to open source Java
Enterprise System and N1 was a natural next step after the company
created an open source project around Solaris.
"One hundred percent of our customers are deploying Web infrastructures and asking for relief from onerous licences and system-integration activity," Schwartz said.
Sun tipped its hand earlier about its software direction. "Everything that Sun produces will be open source and free," Schwartz said in a September speech.
However, "everything" doesn't mean everything, at least not yet. Sun still has no plans to release as open source software the core part of Java, called Java Standard Edition and including software such as the virtual machine.
"The Java foundation technology Java SE is not included in open source," Loiacono said in an interview. Nor is storage management software, but that will eventually be released as open source software.
Support won't be free, however. "Customers will come to Sun to purchase the licences, services and support to take full advantage of the benefits Sun software can offer them," Sun said in a statement.
Existing support pricing won't change, Sun said. Customers pay $50 per year, per employee, to use any of six suites of server software. Alternatively, they can...
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