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Sun to Merge UltraSPARC with Fujitsu's SPARC64?

Posted by michael on from the dying-gasp dept.

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.

13 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ouch to the American Company by Davak · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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

  2. New name... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    will they name the new company Sun-tsu?

  3. Re:Ouch to the American Company by Davak · · Score: 5, Informative
    recently confirmed its commitment to TI technology

    I believe that TI and Sun had developed a relationship with TI's production of the 90-nanometer chips.

    Anyway, there is no doubt that the relationship between TI and Sun has been locked in for a long time. Sun breaking away from TI would most likely be very damaging to TI.

    Sun/TI partnership milestones:
    -- 1988 - Sun/TI relationship founded
    -- 1992 - Delivery of SuperSPARC(r) and MicroSPARC(r) 1
    -- 1994 - Delivery of SuperSPARC II
    -- 1995 - Delivery of UltraSPARC I (first 64 bit SPARC processor)
    -- 1997 - Delivery of UltraSPARC II (72-way support)
    -- 2000 - UltraSPARC III (106-way support)
    -- 2001 - Copper UltraSPARC III
    -- 2002 - UltraSPARC III (industry's first 64-bit in 130 nm)
    -- 2003 - First 64-bit 90 nm process samples


  4. SPEC 2000 scores Fujitsu/Sun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It does seem like Fujitsu has the edge with
    their SparcGP4 chip...

    CINT2000

    Company System Results #CPU
    Fujitsu Limited PRIMEPOWER650 (1350MHz) 905 776 1
    Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V880 (1050MHz) 626 560 1

    CFP2000

    Fujitsu Limited PRIMEPOWER650 (1350MHz) 1340 1096 1
    Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V880(1200MHz) 1082 923 1

  5. Are they or are they not joining? by Davak · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Here's the latest updated article

    The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Thursday that the firms will standardize designs for Unix servers as early as 2004 and production of high-end servers would be consolidated at a Fujitsu subsidiary.

    If they agree to integrate their server operations, the two companies would have more than 40 percent of the Unix server market, topping market leader Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: news, chart, profile).

    It seems that Fujitsu is not confirming that the two companies will "broaded this relationship." See quote below.

    Fujitsu spokesman Scott Ikeda said that while the two companies enjoy a close partnership and have had discussions in the past, there have not been fresh talks to broaden this relationship.

    "At the present time, however, nothing has been decided with respect to expanding the scope of our current relationship with Sun," Fujitsu said in a statement.


    Too much news being leaked? Or is there another reason to not confirm this at this time?
  6. Extend their Linux and x86 business? by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Really? "Sun has no Linux strategy and that the server maker offers Linux only because customers ask for it", and "Linux is a 'great environment for the hobbyist' but not for corporate IT shops" McNealy and software vice president Jonathan Schwartz at SunNetwork in San Francisco, 16th September 2003.

    They might be doing Linux, but they are certainly not keen on the idea and are only doing so because their customers keep asking for it. Well, at least they are listening to their customers I suppose, so there is that, but it still feels to me like Sun has seriously lost its sense of direction recently. I suspect a lot of FUD filled editorial is going to be written under banners like "Has the SPARC gone out for Sun?" real soon now.

    Still, at least Apple's star seems to be rising at the moment. ;)

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  7. Sun Shine on AMD? by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
    1. Re:Sun Shine on AMD? by Jungle+guy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you beeen hiding on a cave? Sun is flirting with AMD, and looks like they have serious plans to port Solaris on 64 bits to AMD-64. Check out this story. It looks like the open letter from that Merryl Linch analyst is working. I also think that Sun should focus on software and complete solutions, and stop messing with processors too much.

  8. Re:Hope this doesn't effect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Won't. Fujitsu is doing the multi-core thing too.

    SPARC64 chips outperform Ultra in many ways,

    o 6 way pipelineing instructions
    o hardware instruction retry
    o ECache ECC

    MHz for MHz, Fujitsu SPARC is about 30% faster than
    Sun SPARC.

    more reliable too.

  9. This would make a ton of sense by nelsonal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    SUN's biggest problem is that they employ a ton of chip (second only to Intel) and system designers to design their systems. As I understand it, Fujitsu develops their own chip compatable with the SPARC architecture. The two companies are now competing with Intel who sells 100 million CPUs a year (Xeon doesn't require a whole lot of R&D beyond a regular P4), in a good year they both might sell 5 million CPUs (I'm not positive about fujitsu's unit volumes) so their cost per chip is significantly higher. Combining these efforts should help both companies reduce costs, by spreading lower development costs over more CPUs, and might help them compete with the new IA-32 based competitors.

    --
    Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    1. Re:This would make a ton of sense by chrysrobyn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      SUN's biggest problem is that they employ a ton of chip (second only to Intel) and system designers to design their systems.

      I see two alternatives:

      1. Through ignorance or oversight, you're not counting IBM, the largest computer company in the world. They maintain PowerPC (750 and 970 series and embedded stuff), Power (eServers and stuff) and mainframes (zSeries -- S/390, more than the riced out Unix that Sun wants to call a mainframe). Additionally, IBM designs ASICs not only for themselves, but for other companies.

      2. You truly have an insightful point in how many people are employed by Sun-- which points to how much bloat Sun has. If, in fact, you are correct, you are pointing out how many people Sun needs to cut in order to be competive with IBM, to say nothing if Intel who only maintains a few chipset ASICs, the Pentium III/IV and the new cheap one they're advertising on TV.

  10. Linux.. by BrookHarty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On every desktop at work, we have 2 machines, a dell laptop and a sun workstation. And over the last few years, everyone started putting linux on the sun workstations. Gnome helped keep some users on Solaris, but the main people switched to KDE and SuSE linux.

    Then someone finally stated, why dont we just buy a dell desktop and put Linux on it, and have full support. Looks like the death of Sun workstation in our ops group. The only people left are the NOC which use X and Citrix, and will stay with the Ultra10s (multiheaded)...

    Sun had a good product with the Sunblades, but they didnt push or support linux on them. 1000 bux and you got a nice little workstation, took standard PC parts, and works pretty well.

    So, if Sun gets to keep the workstation market, and Fijitsu keeps the server market, seems like a bad move for Sun. Why would you buy x86 servers from Sun that run linux, when you could by x86 servers from a true x86 company like Dell? OR buy support from Redhat, a true linux support company?

    Doesnt make sense.

  11. Re:They have to by Biolo · · Score: 3, Informative

    UltraSPARC not 64 bit? Since when? We have Ultra1 machines running Solaris in 64 bit mode. SPARC was 32 bit, UltraSPARC is 64!

    --
    Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.