Sun to Merge UltraSPARC with Fujitsu's SPARC64?

Waldmeister writes "The Register has a story from a japanese source, that Sun and Fujitsu are planning to combine their Unix server businesses. Even if Sun doesn't comment on this, they acknowledge that Scott McNealy met Fujitsu's CEO this week. If this will happen, Fujitsu will get the bigger chunk of manufacturing and engineering. With the PrimePower systems outperforming Sun's SunFire systems for some time now, this sounds reasonable, too. And it gives Sun the chance to more resources to extend their Linux and x86 business." There's also a Reuters story.

Comments

Re:Ouch to the American Company

[Davak]

Woah. Sorry. Missed my cut and paste. This is the quote for which I was looking:

The newspaper also said the two firms would jointly develop cutting edge microchips for the servers' CPUs (central processing units) and Fujitsu would mass-produce them in Japan.

But such a move would hurt Texas Instruments Inc (NYSE:TXN - News), which currently makes CPUs for Sun, and some analysts said pooh-poohed the idea that this would happen.

I wonder how Sun is going to get out of this long term contract with TI... otherwise, I don't see how this new merger is going to really help Sun.

Davak

Sun Shine on AMD?

[4of12]

I hope this isn't the only iron in the fire fort Sun.

As others have mentioned, it will ruin their good relationship with TI.

Also, it's doubtful that special purpose RISC chips can provide enough in the price/performance arena to keep from having their market share continue to decline, as it has for the last 10 years or so.

Low end Linux servers is a dangerously competitive business for Sun to be in, but it's a growing business and one where they have much to offer.

Fortunately, if Sun "doesn't have a Linux strategy", Dell, the 800 lb gorilla, is still half-napping, too. Dell's support of Linux is weaker than that of rivals IBM and HP, plus their potentially missing some nice opportunities by actively ignoring non-Intel x86.

Sun should climb on board the AMD Opteron with Linux. They are a company with the experience and credentials to create a quality piece of hardware and have the UNIX background to cover the software side, too.