Sun attacks rivals at server launch

'Bad news' for HP and IBM, says Sun chief

Sun Microsystems launched its long awaited series of mid-range UltraSparc III servers at CeBIT last week, and took the opportunity to criticise rival vendors Hewlett Packard (HP) and IBM.

Chief executive Scott McNealy said he expected to ship more of the servers - codenamed Fire - during the CeBIT trade show than HP has managed to sell of its SuperDome servers since their launch five months ago.

"This is more bad news for the competition," he said. "IBM and HP have thrown everything they could at us, including old products with new names, and new products with 'super' names. But we still take market share away from them."

The four models - the Sun Fire 3800, 4800, 4810 and 6800 - run on the Solaris 8 operating system and will take eight, 12 or 24 processors respectively. Each of the servers ships with 2Gb of Ram.

"Sun can shout all it wants, but its products are outdated and expensive," said a source at HP, who declined to be named. "McNealy does this from time to time but it will backfire on him."

The new product range features Sun's Fireplane technology which allows engineers to upgrade, service or fix potential problems in a server while it is still running.

"It is the equivalent of a car that can have its oil changed and engine tuned while running down the freeway at high speed," commented Greg Papadopoulous, Sun's chief technology officer.

Prices for the Fire range, which are available now, begin at $75,000 (£54,402) for the low-end 3800 unit and rise to $250,000 for the 6800.