FOLLOW THE SUN?

By M.S.Welles

in April talks between Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM fell through and now there's a great deal of speculation regarding what will become of Sun.

There are several things that could happen. First, Sun could seek another buyer, which might take time and might not result in a purchase, just like the negotiations with IBM.

There are several companies that might benefit by acquiring Sun. Fujitsu Ltd. already makes servers based on Sun's Sparc technology. Cisco, a very successful company, wants to expand into the server market. Hewlett Packard, IBM's top server rival could acquire the company and insure that the technology didn't reach IBM at a future date.

Second, Sun could change it's current management. The question if, of course, who could lead Sun out of it's current problems and into the "sunlight"?

Chairman and co-founder Scott McNealy gave up the CEO job to Jonathan Schwartz four years ago. McNealy is said to be unhappy with the current Sun and considering stepping back in. However, McNealy personally trained Schwartz as his protege, to take over and has always publicly supported him and his strategies.

The third choice is that Sun could decide to make no changes and just keep doing what it's doing.

While Sun expects to release new Sparc systems and new systems based on the Intel Xeon 5500 processor, two problems make that route uncertain. First is the problem of releases that are far behind initially anticipated dates. Second, since the future of Sun is so uncertain, the question remains whether corporate users will be willing to continue buying new hardware from the company.

Many current Sun users have already voiced the opinion that they think the best strategy for them to switch from Sparc machines running Solaris to Linux and X86 machines.

Adding to Sun's difficulties is the economic recession which is making it harder for Sun to compete for server sales.

Analysts and users alike remain expectant for news of what Sun will do and how it will affect their future.