Sun Analyst Summit 2008: The Network is (Still) the Computer… and Software Drives the Network

Industry and financial analysts received an enthusiastic welcome from CEO and President Jonathan Schwartz, who laid down the baseline message: “Network Innovation Is Our Focus. “ The catalyst of that innovation is clearly software, as Schwartz and other speakers emphasized during the 3-day event.

Sun execs presented software as the key to systems sales and development. According to Rich Green, EVP of Software, “Software is the center of Sun’s business.” The company is cultivating communities of developers and allying with new partners – such as IBM, now offering Solaris on x86 and System z – to drive its market momentum.  Fans of Solaris, OpenSolaris, and xVM, the theory goes, may eventually migrate to Sun hardware. Revenue gains for Solaris on non-Sun servers are not yet available. According to Ian Murdock, Chief Operating System Strategist for Software Marketing, that will take a while because software revenues are blended; he could not say when stand-alone numbers will be available. He did report that 70% of Solaris instances are presently deployed on Dell, HP, and IBM boxes.