Sun and Fujitsu unite over data centre vision
Sun and Fujitsu unite over data centre vision
Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu have strengthened their 20 year partnership by agreeing to merge their Solaris and Sparc processor-based server lines and create new products that will replace Sun's Sun Fire line and Fujitsu's Primepower products.
They plan to bring in a number of low-range, mid-range and high-range products into the market by 2006, under the name of the Advanced Product Line, so that they can create the industry's most complete data centre systems family.
Several chips and systems will be sold under the APL servers, which will be capable of running several processing tasks simultaneously. The APL systems will be based on Fujitsu's Sparc64 VI processors and Sun's Niagra and Rock chips.
Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer for Sun Microsystems said. "Sun continues to grow the broadest operating platforms on earth, spanning Java and the Java Enterprise System; the Solaris operating environment running industry standard x86 servers; up into the mainframe environment; and a newly expanded Sparc family, providing the highest performance computing infrastructure for the largest diversity of network workloads."
Hiroaki Kurokawa, president of Fujitsu Limited added. "Fujitsu's leading-edge semiconductor technology and expertise in developing high-performance, high-reliability processors for world-class mainframe and supercomputer systems, together with Sun's Solaris, Java and other industry-leading technology strengths, represent a powerful combination for enterprise customers.
"I'm confident that our enhanced partnership will enable us to provide customers with optimal server products that deliver maximum business value."
This unified front could also help Sun recover from its recent financial difficulties. It recently made a third major round of layoffs in three years.
Fujitsu also claims that this partnership will strengthen integration issues for Solaris and Sparc systems, that will create increased opportunities for thousands of software vendors and resellers by broadening the market for Solaris.
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