Gloomy forecast for Sun

Sun Microsystems becomes latest vendor to lament slowing economy as first quarter revenues tumble

Vendor Sun Microsystems is anticipating a revenue decline of up to eight per cent in 2009's first quarter after reporting preliminary results today.

The server and storage manufacturer is expecting revenue of between $2.95bn (£1.73bn) and $3.05bn for the three months to 28 September, down from $3.22bn in Q1 2008. In accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, Sun is expecting net loss per share to fall between $0.35 and $0.25. Total gross margin is anticipated to be between 39 and 41 per cent of revenue.

Full results will be published next week and chief executive Jonathan Schwartz lamented the challenging economic climate. He said: “Sun and its customers are seeing the impact of a slowing economy. We believe we are positioned to offer the kinds of products that can radically help customers reduce expenditures for their infrastructure from Open Storage to Solaris-based Chip Multi-Threading systems to offering the most eco-efficient systems in the market."