Sun To Offer 'Per-Citizen' Software Pricing

Both the Java Enterprise System (JES), a suite of enterprise-scale infrastructure software, and the Java Desktop System (JDS), a Linux-based desktop operating system, will have such pricing, Sun Executive Vice President of Software Jonathan Schwartz said at the company's San Francisco office Tuesday.

The per-citizen pricing, which he proposed could be something like 40 cents per individual user--with that user being a citizen of a country--would allow nations that are underdeveloped technology-wise, such as China or the Philippines, to have access to affordable networking technology.

These countries would welcome such a pricing scheme because it would allow them to offer their citizens access to Internet-based services, such as e-government services enabling people to sign up for health care, Schwartz said.

"If we can deliver, say, per-citizen pricing of 40 cents per citizen, the government would pay a per-license fee to Sun and would now have the right to use that technology throughout their IT applications within the government, as well as expose those applications for their citizens to access," he said.

Schwartz said Sun is working with the United Nations to set approproate pricing for countries according to the way the United Nations categorizes them. For instance, a country that falls under the "less developed" criteria would have a lower per-citizen pricing rate than one that falls under "more developed" status, he said.

Schwartz Tuesday also outlined other creative ways Sun is planning to bolster sales of JES and JDS, including distribution and pricing initiatives. For instance, he reiterated Sun's plans to offer JES on HP-UX and Windows OSes by the end of the calendar year, hinting at some incentives Sun may offer to those customers to get them to use the software.

Schwartz said Sun might offer JES, currently priced at $100 per employee, per year, for $90 per employee, per year, to encourage current HP-UX or Windows customers to buy it. On the other hand, Sun also is eyeing a JES price of $110 per employee, per year, for those same customers if they run it on HP-UX or Windows vs. the less expensive pricing for running it on the server operating systems Sun hardware supports, Solaris or Linux. This might encourage those customers to also buy Sun hardware, along with the software, he said.

The channel plays a major role in Sun's software distribution strategy, particularly for JES, Schwartz said. Leveraging solution providers in the SMB market is of key interest for Sun, especially now that the vendor has a pricing model for often cost-prohibitive Java software that might appeal to those customers. In addition to the yearly subscription fee for JES, which is competitive to current per-CPU licensing fees from vendors such as IBM or BEA Systems, Sun also is offering JES free to companies with fewer than 100 employees if they run the software on a Sun server, as CRN previously reported.

"In our history, we have seldom served companies with 100 employees," Schwartz said. "Now we're talking to them."

Solution providers said now that Sun has rounded out its portfolio to include competitively priced, enterprise-scale software on a variety of 32-bit and 64-bit hardware options, the vendor is working hard to identify partners to deliver the message to markets where the company might not have been a strong player before.

"Sun is doing a re-evaluation of what resellers can help them move forward in their software and solutions efforts," said Tom Kuni, president of Metuchen, N.J.-based solution provider SSI/Hub City. "Sun is realizing that [the partners that] got them the way they are now might not take them to where they want go."

In the interests of evangelizing Sun's software strategy, Schwartz Tuesday also plugged Sun's developer special for JES--which offers JES developer tools Sun Java Studio Enterprise and Sun Studio, along with Solaris for x86, support services and a free Sun Fire V20zServer, for a three-year subscription price of $1,499 as an innovative way to distribute its products.

Schwartz said this type of distribution is similar to the way telecom carriers offer cell phones free with wireless services, and should set a precedent for the IT industry as a whole.

"As a systems company, we're now pricing systems just like carriers price handsets," Schwartz said. "Here in San Francisco, you can get a free handset when you sign up for a wireless subscription. We believe all technology will move in that direction."

Getting technology in developers' hands for a relatively low price or even for free also creates a larger developer community for a company's technology, Schwartz said. "If you establish awareness of your technology, you develop a developer base," he said.

This is why Schwartz said he also is not entirely opposed to pirating of Sun software, referring in particular to JDS, which competes with Microsoft's Windows desktop OS. Microsoft is notorious for cracking down on corporations and even educational institutions that run one licensed copy of Windows in multiple instances, forcing them to pay for separate licenses for every instance.

"Piracy [is] a really good developer program," Schwartz said. "If you're going to steal software, steal my software. When your software is pirated, you are building [developer] skills around it."

Schwartz added that Sun would consider handing out JDS free to developers, but would rather find a hardware partner to bundle it with PCs to do that instead. While it may be difficult initially for Sun to find such a partner in the United States--where most PC manufacturers such as Dell, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard are deeply entrenched in Microsoft partnerships--it won't be the same situation in regions like Asia that have not committed to Microsoft, he said.

"I would expect to have [a hardware partner] in Asia long before we have them in the U.S.," Schwartz said.