Sun Shines On Storage Again
Sun Shines On Storage Again
July 27th, 2006: Sun bounces back with strong re-growth in the storage marke..
Sun’s fourth quarter results showed the vendor had begun to grow again for the first time since its US $4.1 billion purchase of StorageTek last year. Sun posted total revenues of US $3.83 billion, up 29 percent from the period last year. The company has undergone major restructuring in recent months and the news comes as the first sign this move has been successful.
However, the vendor reported a net loss for the quarter of US $301 million, down from the US $50 million loss of the same time last year. Sun pointed to the associated internal restructuring from its purchase of StorageTek and the US $387 Million acquisition of specialist software company SeeBeyond.
Sun CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, who is largely responsible for the recent restructuring and job cuts, says, “We have wasted no time in making some tough decisions. I am pleased with our initial progress and the results we’re announcing”.
Despite the losses, Sun’s Storage arm performed well with revenues from StorageTek up in the mid-to-high single digits, claims Sun. Yesterday, the vendor revealed a new data warehouse appliance, based on its recently launched Sun Fire X4500 platform, code-named “Thumper”. Sun is pitching the appliance at the telecommunications, retail, financial services and internet industries and says it will be available later this quarter in configurations of 10, 40, and 100 Terabytes.
Described as a storage-server hybrid, the X4500 combines up to 24 Terabytes of SATA disk storage in a rack-mounted system with two dual-core Opteron “x64” processors. The result, Sun claims, is a device that combines the computing power of Sun's “Galaxy” high-performance servers with high-density storage in a 7-inch rack-mount box.