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Sun's Bold New Ad Campaign
Celeritas writes "Sun is making some noise over their latest x64server entries by doing a fly by over Dell's HQ yesterday. A few pictures were snapped to capture the event. Sun has continued the offensive by running some interesting ads as well as designing some that were rejected due to the controversial content or as Sun calls them 'bold ad concepts'"
... for Dell Computer Corporation, anyway.
McNealy is sure paying a lot of money to keep Michael's name in the big lights.
Dell followed up by sending a B-52 on a bomb run over Sun headquarters. Sun was not available for comment.
From the text of that ad, you'd think they had -just- now started selling AMD64 servers. I have several Sun AMD64 servers sitting in my server room, and have for quite a while now. Granted, they're just reference boxes -- but they do say Sun on them.
Scott McNealy is officially insane.
Didn't Quark run a bunch of ads that maligned Adobe's product and basically made Quark come off like a bunch of insecure jerks?
When you have to insult your competition, you insinuate that you are losing to them. Sun looks like they are losing to Dell, which they may very well be, I don't know. But this ad campaign cements that idea.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I know jack about marketing, but this stinks of desperation.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Perhaps Sun could learn to promote their products on their own merits, rather than insulting a competitor.
Want a new computer?
What don't you all just go to Dell!
Easy as Hell! (whoops!)
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
But don't most server admins know the benefits, and won't they have already done the research on what they want to buy?
You think server admins usually get to choose what to buy?
I don't think so.
It looks to me the ads are probably targeted at getting the mindshare of PHB types.
http://quarkvsindesign.com/news/archives/2005/03/q uarks-postcards-from-the-edge/
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I'm gonna go wash the taste of those out of my mouth now...
You know what?
And they're not the first ones to try and embarrass Sun on Sun's turf. Galaxy-Class servers. Gene Roddenberry is rolling in his grave. Folks, this is a 1U, 2-64 CPU machine. Nice. But just wait a short while and multi-cores will blow this stuff away-- before the end of the year you can get four (then more) 64-bit cores in a 1U, and stuff it with enough RAM to make a real difference. Please watch the Tom and Dick Smothers-- oops I mean Scott and Jonathon-- Show for more details. And it's Schwartz playing bass.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
-Not yellow box, but Sun love you long time.
-Dell Sucks: Sun swallows. You owe us one. Buy our servers.
-No, that's not IBM biting my ass. DELL SUCKS.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Err, have you NOT been reading slashdot for the last couple of days? This is what these ads are all about. AMD Opteron boxes for cheaper than Dell sells em and faster as well. New designs by Andy Bechtolsteim (sic), who is widely regarded as one of the best server designers...
Oh, and I think these boxes are supported by Sun for Windows, Linux (Redhat and Suse) and of course Solaris.
And of course they push Solaris. Some people actually think that it MIGHT be a better Unix that Linux (Moderators, you didnt read that...)
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
The yutzes over at Sun's marketing team don't even know what their talking about. What's an "x64" server? Do they mean "64-bit" or have they shaved x86 down to size?
More
Sun Microsystems is about to make you its bitch!
(Because we know how well *that* campaign is remembered.)
20 comments, and the images are still available. I guess the new servers are ass-kickin machines.
"Scott McNealy is going to make Dell his bitch"
Worked well for John Romero, I'm sure it would work great for Sun.
I'm just surprised they didn't call the server line "Xtreeeme64".
Sometimes my arms bend back.
What price sheet have you been looking at and from what year?
... all of Sun's x86 servers are certified to run Linux. They wouldn't bother if they thought that Linux sucks.
A Sun Fire X2100 starts at $745 LIST. Go through a reseller and you're guaranteed to get discounts on top of that. These prices that UNHEARD OF for Sun. They have completely slashed their prices down to levels that I never thought I would ever see. I've been working with Sun hardware for 10 years and I've been cursing their outrageous prices for nine of those years as I saw Intel after Intel replace numerous Sun workstations and servers. I've had no excuse to curse Sun's prices in the past 12 months.
If we were talking about the Sun of the past, you'd be absolutely correct. They charged outrageous prices because your were buying the Sun name and the Sun R&D. That arrogance died very recently. Look at any of their x86 offerings, like the Ultra 20, which is also available for less than $900 list.
Half the quality? They offer a 3 year warranty on all hardware. Every other vendor I've had to deal with wants a service contract ($$$) for that amount of coverage. I doubt they'd give that warranty if they thought the quality was such that the systems wouldn't last at least that long. Otherwise, they'd expect to lose a shitload of money to spare parts and customer service calls, which would not be a wise move at all.
Oh, by the way
It's blatantly obvious that you don't have a clue what you're talking about or you just want to bash on Sun for the sake of bashing on Sun.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
That porno-mag style interview with the SunFire server near the fire place is very interesting - more proof that porn and technology go hand in hand. What kind of website would reliable, beefy server hardware be more suited to than a pr0n operation?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
The Sun Opteron boxes are also Microsoft certified for Windows 2003. That had to make McNealy chafe.
-30-
Dell, the name Osama Bin Laden swears by.
When you buy Dell, it makes the baby Jesus cry. You don't want to make the baby Jesus cry, do you?
Hey Dell, we just fucked your girlfriend.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You act like this is new for Sun. Let's not forget that this is the same Sun that sent a boatload of exterminator trucks to the Windows 2000 launch just to remind everyone that Win2K had 65,000 bugs in it. Or the constant bickering between Sun and IBM.
Not to mention McNealy's comments about HP: "They make great printers!"
Nope, nothing new under the Sun.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Why? I think that's a really brilliant move! That means that Sun systems are the only systems out there that are certified to run Linux, Windows, and Solaris x86. That's has the potential to be an awesome marketing tool that no other server manufacturer can make.
As I mentioned in a different Slashdot story, one of the local Windows admins got a loaner Sun system with Windows installed on it and he was very impressed with its speed and stability. That can open a whole, new market base for Sun. And even if those servers don't run Solaris now, who's to say that they won't in the future as current systems are put into end-of-life or replaced and therefore can serve other functions? Now that we've moved the data to a bigger server, what should we do with this one? Let's put that Solaris on it and see what we can do with it. Hey, it's a very distinct possibility.
Personally, I think that it's about time that McNealy swallowed a bit of that arrogant pride of his. It's been a long time coming. As a Sun admin for over 10 years I'm very excited about this new direction that Sun has been taking. Let's hope it's not too little, too late.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
If marketing didn't matter, then DEC would probably still be around as DEC. They were very good with engineering, but bad at marketing and mad at management too.
that $745 is sans drive and OS - $1295 for the 80GB SATA & Solaris.
That's still half the price of the low-end xServe. Hmmm....
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I know that Sun antagonizes the linux world to some extent but even so, I respect the company. It has given me OpenOffice -- a suite I use almost daily (I don't work on weekends). Several years ago I bought a copy of StarOffice to show my appreciation -- but I've been using OpenOffice and all the upgrades since for a sum total of the 60-70 bucks I voluntarily spent on Star Office (can't recall the exact price anymore). In all honesty, I owe Sun a good amount of appreciation, and I hope they do kick some Dell butt.
Plus, they have some really nice looking hardware. I'm seriously considering replacing my home built, "sides taken off because it gets too hot and crashes during gzipping of backups" monstrosity I have sitting here.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Nope. I live right next to Dell's Round Rock campus and this (http://www.justanotherpodcast.net/Files/Sunx86Fly oversmall.jpg) is exactly what was flying over around 2 PM.
Without much poking on the Sun web site, I found that the new x2100, an x64 machine like these, use SATA...
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
was when they announced the Ultra's. Once again, Sun made a remarkable turn around, and climbed to heights previously unseen. It was the third time Sun had returned from near death. Maybe this will be the forth. Sun has consistently built some of the best platforms out there, time to shed another skin and do it again.
Do some research, over time Sun has done more for Open Source than any other company.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Sun would probably say AMD64, since that is what they sell, except that they also want you to run Solaris on your non-Sun boxes, which may have 64 bit Intel x86 processors. They may also want to avoid burning bridges, in case Intel processors become more compelling in the future.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Sun has a winning hand here. It is that simple.
... you can see why Sun has no problem mentioning Dell in the ads.
The AMD64 platform is a better platform than Intel's at the moment, in every way. And on top of that, Sun has a hell of a lot more experience in building bulletproof hardware. When you factor in Solaris & a lower price tag
You can spin this whatever way you want, but I'm looking forward to seeing Sun trash the company that brought us the "Dell dude". Dell can go back to selling their overpriced PCs at Christmas, and the people who actually run the important servers in the world, doing billion dollar transactions, have a clear path to keep the Windows/Dell bozos out of the server room in the basement of the bank.
Michael Dell: I'm trying to make computers for kids to take to college.
Scott McNealy: Your mom goes to college.
The competition has given Sun an opening, by sticking with Intel even in an area where AMD has better technology (though Intel will probably catch up in a year or two). Ordinarily I'd laugh at Sun for saying "we're number 6". But if they can partner with AMD well, and AMD can deliver in volume, Sun may survive, they might even do well.
But the people I know are only going to be interested in buying those boxes if they run Linux. To be specific, Red Hat Enterprise, since that's pretty much the standard for electronic design automation these days at least in the US. That's why Sun is suddenly making nice to Red Hat.
Cost is still cost no matter where it comes from. And telling the VP that you save them so much a year always gets you brownie points no matter where that savings goes. It doesn't even matter if what you did to save them money actually sucks vs what you did before. As long as they hear a lot of the good and don't noice the bad you are golden.
At anyrate here are some reason why lower power is becoming more and more important. First all large datacenters costs tons to cool. You are talking huge air conditioning units running 24/7. Everytime you add a rack to your server room you come that much closer to having to spend a large chunk of money upgrading your cooling. You also come that much closer to having to upgrade your power systems. Server rooms aren't usually just plug it into wall kind of deal. You actually get large power conditioning in professional datacenters. The point is you don't just save on the power the servers themselves actually use but also on cooling and the power conditioning. Also the less power a server uses the cooler it runs the more you can pack into a rack without worrying about them over heating. That also saves you money cause it means you can put that many more servers in the space you have before you need a cheque to pay of an expansion or relocation to a large facility.
I used to work at SUN and I was personally at the meetings when they were announcing and planning their takeover of the x86 server market. They have been strategically planning and designing for this for more than two years now. The thing that SUN was finding as they made their designs and tested them is that they were finding flaws in the Intel/AMD ref designs, and when they went and told them, those companies were saying, "Wow, nobody ever noticed that before." SUN knows how to make a stable server, and their designs are WORLD CLASS. Bottom line. Looks like SUN is poised to become a great name in computing again.
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/x64tradeup/index.html
Trade in any qualified Dell server and get a 20% trade-up allowance off the list price on eligible new Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers with 3-year support services. That's a potential savings of up to $1,900 on new entry level Sun servers that have 1.5 times the performance of Xeon-based Dell servers.* Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers also offer up to 56% savings in power and cooling costs per year over comparable Dell servers.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
Dell is crippled by sticking with Intel. Intel went for the laptop market, while AMD went for the server market. The laptop market is bigger, and the margins are better in the server market, so this was a good choice for both companies. The problem is that Dell is trying to sell servers with CPUs that really aren't intended for server-class applications, or with older server class chips, while Sun is selling servers containing chips designed for servers.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
- Apple Ipod - fucking Apple, forcing that shiny 40gb mp3 player down my throat.
- Satallite Radio - what fucktard thought it would be intelligent to beam radio from space directly to me, particuarly when im watching TV
- Tivo - I wish I could skip through this Tivo commercial.
- The original 1984 Mac - what a horrible flop THAT was, clearly the largest waste of an ad campaign eVAR!
But *incredible* products just fly off the shelf at their own free will, with no advertising what so ever! Like...- Segway - I've never seen an ad for a segway! These devices are going to CHANGE THE FUCKING WAY WE BUILD CITIES!!!
- Rokr - Subpar MP3 and Cell Phone in the same device; that's the wave of the future. All the advertising money spent on Nano? No worries, Rokr will change the future.
- Daikatana - If youre still reading, I eat people.
Wait.... a CS nerd, who hasn't changed in three weeks, calls out a 10 billion-dollar-a-month-industry that is Advertising -- on the amazing revelation that "good products sell themselves"? When you aren't furiously masterbating to Inu Yasha and reading slashdot, please go to your MKTG 101 class this week.HJ
my theory is: ... Good products don't need much if any advertising.
That was the attitude over at Digital. Their head honcho believed that they would dominate by just having the best products, and that marketing was therefore a waste of time. Instead they got bought out by some commodity PC outfit called Compaq.
Au contraire. The reason they advertise Linux compatibility with their servers is precisely the same reason they advertise Windows compatibility: it's what their customers want to run. If they could, I'm sure they'd wave a magic wand and make their clients all hot and bothered to run Solaris.
Most likely the reason you don't hear them outright trashing Linux these days is that someone who works marketing for their hardware finally got through to the upper management: "Your customers are running Linux. They like Linux. Trash talk Linux, and they get defensive about their choices. Then they don't like you no more."
Informed Customers would rather wax their butt cracks with an angry wasp than buy a Dell. On the other hand, they like our dual power supplies.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.