Wednesday, 3 October 2007

Sun Talks Of Combined Server, Storage Business

Sun Microsystems has said that it is combining its server and storage businesses internally to cash in on the combined expertise. It however said a separate sales and marketing team would handle the two groups.

Sun topper Jonathan Schwartz said, "Now, why do I believe combining groups make sense? It's a recipe that works for us. Can you tell where the server stops, and the storage starts? I can't."

John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun Microsystems, will manage the combined unit and said, "The distinctions between what constitutes a computer server and what constitutes a computer storage system and what constitutes fiber band are going down. We decided to combine these groups into a single group to facilitate that."

Although the deal to combine the two of Sun’s strong units will become a possibility, Sun said that it will retain separate sales and marketing teams.
"The customer-facing representatives will remain intact, but behind that, we're leveraging all we have at Sun," Fowler said. "We'll be taking advantage of the leverage we'll have when we have a conversation to mix those two."

He added that Sun's roadmap remains unchanged and there will be no reduction in headcount, despite recent rounds of job cuts at the company to do just that.