Sun Plans Orion Beta For Late July; Formal Launch Slated For September

While the beta will not be available until August, Sun is scheduled to formally unveil it in late July, said solution providers familiar with Sun's plans. Sun, based in Santa Clara, Calif., will not move into general availability with Project Orion, which will have a new name, until November. However, the sources said the company will outline what products are to be included in the first launch at the Sun Network conference, which runs Sept. 15 to 18.

Sun declined to comment on its Project Orion rollout plans, but a source close to the company confirmed that the company is targeting late July or early August for the first Orion beta. There will be 11 individual Sun ONE software products included in the first launch of Orion. The project, first unveiled in February, is aimed at integrating the Sun ONE Java software products with the Solaris and Linux operating systems.

Solution provider sources said products included in the September launch will be Sun Cluster Server; Message Queue Enterprise Edition; Instant Messaging; Calendar Server; Messaging Server; Portal Server; Portal Remote Access Server; Identity Server; Web Server; two versions of the Sun ONE Application Server, Standard Edition and Platform Edition; and Directory Server.

Sources also said Sun is considering integrating its metadirectory services into the Orion build this summer. Archrival Microsoft announced just last week that it has shipped to manufacturing a new product called Microsoft Identity Integration Server, an identity management and access solution based on the Microsoft metadirectory services.

Eventually, Sun will include all of its software products in Orion, the sources said.

While Sun has not officially decided how to rebrand Orion, which is just a project code name, solution providers said "SunPac" is the name that has appeared on pricing quotes for early-access customers. But this is not likely to be the final name for Orion, a source close to Sun said.

Orion mimics Microsoft's integrated server software approach. However, sources say Orion initially won't be nearly as integrated with either Solaris or Linux as Microsoft's server applications are with Windows Server 2000/2003.

On the other hand, Orion offers something the Windows Server System does not: a single per-employee price for the entire software stack, the sources said.

Pricing for Project Orion has not been finalized, although solution providers said Sun has set pricing at between $75 and $100 per employee for early-access customers. The vendor will continue to offer per-CPU pricing for Sun software products, as well as a metered usage pricing that has not been determined, the sources said.

One solution provider who requested anonymity said the lack of clear pricing has posed problems for Sun's sales team, which has been promoting Orion to customers and stirring up interest in the product. The team has had resistance from Sun corporate to set firm pricing until the launch later this year, the solution provider said.

"The Sun sales force is pitching Orion and are trying to get pricing, but [Sun corporate decision-makers] are saying, 'No, you can't, because we haven't had a product launch, so quit selling it,' " said the solution provider. "But the salespeople are saying, 'If someone is buying it, we're selling, get the pricing now.' "

Sun also is trying to nail down how its partners will benefit from selling Orion, said another solution provider.

One scenario is that solution providers will receive a 25 percent discount on purchasing products in Project Orion from Sun and then will be able to offer customers Sun's list prices, said the source, who requested anonymity.

Another scenario is that partners will buy Orion from Sun at the same price they will offer it to customers but then receive rebate checks for 25 percent of Orion sales at the end of each quarter.

Although there are still kinks to work out before Orion is ready for primetime, solution providers working closely with Sun to set pricing and iron out the final details are bullish on the project.

"Orion has a clear business case for many business customers," said Marc Maselli, president of Needham, Mass.-based Back Bay Technologies, a solution provider that has released an executive analysis on Project Orion and its benefits to Sun partners and customers.

Back Bay already is working with customers who plan to implement Orion when it is available. "Sun's strategy of integration will change the way software is purchased," Maselli said. "We're working with five organizations and creating business cases that are strong."

Maselli said, however, that there are challenges to adoption, including migrating applications from other vendor platforms and reskilling a customer's IT staff. "If a company has all BEA [software] and they switch to Sun, you have to retrain them on all the products," he said.

While Project Orion does not specifically integrate all of the software into Solaris, as Sun suggested in initial marketing efforts, it does integrate the installation of the products. This will save solution providers significant time when installing software for a large-scale enterprise system, said Doug Nassaur, CEO of Atlanta-based solution provider True North Technologies.

"The joke we use about deploying software is that the directions are: Step 1, put part A into part B; Step 2, But first [do this]," Nassaur said. "That's what happens when you have to layer all of these different products. There are dependencies that frankly I don't think anyone knows."

With Orion, a Solaris installation process will ask the installer which software components he wants to deploy, install only the ones requested and know which processes to skip to streamline the process depending on what software is being deployed, he said. "That's what's so great about this," Nassaur said.

That ease of installation could spell big money for both solution providers and end users.

"Orion is going to have some killer implications to companies that are smart enough to turn to experienced outsource partners, because they can go to a partner and in six weeks or less these things can be up and running," Nassaur said. "You don't have two weeks wasted [on the install]. I can't tell you how big that's going to be."

Jim Guinn, a national practice director with Houston-based solution provider Consultants' Choice, said he expects his Sun business to grow significantly once Orion is in the marketplace.

Currently, Guinn said 33 percent of his company's business is in providing enterprise architecture, with 80 percent of that business using Sun hardware and software. Next year, Consultants' Choice wants to grow its enterprise architecture business to 75 percent of the company's total business, with 80 percent of that business still rooted in Sun deployments.

"We have invested heavily in Sun," Guinn said. "I'm very excited that customers are already aware of what Orion will be and that they're asking for services and software in the Orion stack."