Sun Microsystems's new deal with Intel just
expands its product base rather than negatively impacting its
commitment to SPARC or rival AMD chips, a Sun official said in an
interview on Monday.
In a quick question-and-answer session with InfoWorld Editor at
Large Paul Krill, Tom Goguen, Sun vice president of Solaris marketing,
and Doug Fisher, Intel vice president of systems software, talked up
Monday's Sun-Intel arrangement.
InfoWorld: What does this mean for SPARC?
Goguen: The long and short of [this agreement] is we see this as an
opportunity to grow the market. We are in no way divesting from SPARC
but rather looking at this as a great opportunity to move Solaris into
new market opportunities and to build systems leveraging Intel's
extensive technology and innovation.
InfoWorld: Weren't you already leveraging Intel platform technology in your arrangement with AMD?
Goguen: Clearly, when you take a look at the market, there are
customers who prefer Intel-branded architecture and Intel-branded
technology so first and foremost we'll be able to serve those customers
with the new systems and optimize Solaris and Solaris 10. Intel is
driving innovation in Xeon with technologies such as virtualization
through I/0.
InfoWorld: What new products is Sun planning based on Intel technology?
Goguen: We have a pretty broad and extensive virtualization roadmap. We'll do things like our Xen hypervisor for the x64 architecture.
InfoWorld: Will Sun push SPARC over Intel-based systems?
Goguen: We like to offer customers a very broad choice. We would
like to see them leveraging as much Sun intellectual property as we can
but there's clearly markets and customers where they are best-served by
an Intel-based solution.
InfoWorld: Which customers would those be?
Goguen: Customers make a rational decision about their needs. There
are customers who have a preference for Intel-based solutions.
InfoWorld: Will Sun still sell AMD-based systems?
Goguen: We've not discontinued anything there.
InfoWorld: Is this deal in response to Intel's recently reporting a 39 percent drop in profits?
Fisher: Clearly not.
Goguen: It takes many months to sort out an agreement like this.
InfoWorld: Is this arrangement going to result in lower prices for Sun workstations and servers?
Goguen: I can't speak to the prices. This brings an opportunity for
Sun and Intel to work more closely together to leverage each other's
innovations.
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