Sun ONE Middleware To Be Built Into Solaris

Speaking at a software executive meeting here Friday, Schwartz said Sun also will change the pricing structure of its software products to reflect a move to a "per-capacity" model. He declined to elaborate on how this model would work or affect the stand-alone pricing of different product editions.

However, Schwartz did say that versions of the middleware built into Solaris,such as the directory and application server already in Solaris 9, would be "limited-use" and offered free, while the stand-alone products would have larger feature sets and higher-use capabilities. Sun also will begin offering all of its middleware and Solaris upgrades at the same time to further enhance product integration, he said.

In recent months, Sun executives have shed little light on the issue of bundling software with Solaris. The company previously indicated that it plans to increasingly bundle its software into Solaris running on Sun hardware. Sun already includes a free version of its Sun ONE Application Server and Sun ONE Directory Server in Solaris.

Schwartz said Sun's decision to offer software that way stems from customer feedback. CIOs, he said, are fed up with "all-you-can-eat" pricing and would rather pay on a per-user or monthly subscription basis, which is more consistent with their fiscal needs. Though not yet finalized, Sun's new pricing model will be something along those lines, Schwartz added.

In other news, Sun plans to demonstrate a new provisioning server in the next 30 days as part of its N1 systems management software, Schwartz said. The product will enable administrators to allocate services and usage options for system users, as well as understand service-level availability. For example, Schwartz said, the provisioning server will enable system administrators to give users access only to information and services they should have access to and prevent them from downloading unnecessary or prohibited software.

At the meeting, Schwartz also outlined Sun's plans to use its desktop software,including its Star Office productivity suite and its upcoming desktop operating system, code-named Mad Hatter,to cut into Microsoft's dominance in that space.

"The biggest benefit Microsoft has in the world is that the world already has Microsoft," Schwartz said, adding that customer "appetites for switching" to another desktop OS and productivity suite are growing. Plans call for Sun to make its Mad Hatter product available in fiscal 2003 second quarter.

Schwartz reiterated previous Sun statements that the vendor doesn't intend to target consumers with Mad Hatter, but instead go after environments such as call centers and academic institutions that have volume users and need to cut costs. Sun will almost exclusively sell Mad Hatter bundled with a Sun hardware product, either the Sun Ray thin client or LX50 rack-mount server, he said.