Sun, Solution Providers Team To Set Orion Pricing
Barry Jones, director of Sun ONE partner marketing, told CRN at the Sun iForce Partner Summit here that Sun expects to finalize pricing for Orion--which offers Sun's entire software stack, including all of the Sun ONE products-on both Solaris and Red Hat Linux, by the end of the summer.
In the meantime, Sun software executives will meet with partners on the Sun ONE Partner Council to get their feedback on what a fair pricing model will be, he said.
"We will take a look at pricing ideas and take those models back to the council [for review]," Jones said. "Sun ONE partners are an active part of the decision-making process."
The Sun ONE VAR council is comprised of eight Sun solution provider partners and two distributors: Dewpoint, Navidec, GE Access, MG Solutions, AC Technology, ePresence, IntraWave, MOCA, InSolutions and US Logical. Rob Mock, president and CEO of Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Dewpoint, and Ralph Armijo, CEO of Greenwood Village, Colo.-based Navidec, are co-chairmen of the council.
Sun's executive vice president of software, Jonathan Schwartz, previously said Orion would be based on three pricing models: traditional per-CPU pricing; a "predictable" pricing model based on some kind of per-employee or other usage-based pricing; and a metered pricing model more in line with a utility model.
In a speech at iForce Wednesday afternoon, Schwartz reiterated that plan to partners and asked for their help in defining a final pricing for Orion.
"The pricing for [Orion] will move to per-something," Schwartz said. "I don't mean to be vague; we're looking for feedback from you."
Schwartz set out a conceptual equation to illustrate how Sun wants to add value to partners and customers with Orion. The equation subtracted the price of the software bundle/operating system from the cost of a company's transition to Orion, which is first subtracted from the benefit of consolidating Java software infrastructure. "We want the outcome to be much greater than zero," Schwartz said.
Jones said Sun is taking into consideration the impact Orion pricing will have on partners that now derive revenue from selling Sun ONE software components separately and delivering services on those products. "We are lining up the pricing with the value proposition now," he said.
Sun wants partners to be prepared to implement Orion as soon as the first version is available, which will be sometime in the fall, Jones said.