Q: I work in a financial institution and we are working with a SUN FIRE V880 with excellent results. Nowdays we are considering in buying another server but some people here are thinking in an itanium 2 server based. My question is if Itanium 2 technology is a serious competitor for Sun? Andy Ingram (A): Itanium is a good processor for certain workloads, particularly if the workload is compute intensive and you are willing to write your own application. The problem with Itanium is that it fundementaly solved the wrong computer design problem (long word supercomputer design from the 1980s) while breaking the x86 code compatibility. The result is that market acceptance is poor. Even HP has dramatically altered course and opted to use Opteron in some of it servers. Ultimately I believe that Itantium will have a very narrow market and you are better off chosing a more mainstream system such as SPARC or Opteron. Q: Great to read more hints about stationary Opteron workstations, any plans for the mobile kind that would allow developers using Studio to code for the Sun ONE (N1) stack while flying from SFO to PVG? Thanks, John groenveld@acm.org Subodh Bapat (A): Mobile Opteron workstations that run Sun software, including JDS and Studio, are likely to come to the market soon. They may not necessarily be Sun- developed hardware but may be available as third- party mobile Opteron hardware certified to run Sun's Software stack. Q: What is Sun's commitment to Compact PCI and will we see an UltraIIIi card soon? Subodh Bapat (A): Sun continues to be committed to the telecom and embedded blade server market. We have our cPCI products today, but are not considering a US IIIi card due to the power envelope constraints in that form factor. We also have our cPSB products available in the market today and are aggressively evaluating next-generation ATCA product options that are capable of accommodating the power envelopes of new Microprocessors, including US IIIi, CMT Niagara, and Opteron. Q: Is there any thought building and selling large scale Linux machines? x86 or Opteron scaled out past 20 CPUs? Is Sun working on getting the Linux Kernel to run on such machines? Subodh Bapat (A): Yes to all of the above. Stay tuned for some exciting product announcements for our high-end Opteron-based blade servers later this year that will support Solaris, Linux and Windows, with integrated clustering. Q: When do we see the AMD blades into the market ? Andy Ingram (A): While we only share such specifics under NDA, you can expect to see something in the next year. Q: Sun is certifying the Windows on x86 servers. Why not ship the servers which are pre loaded with windows? Subodh Bapat (A): Sun's x86 products are certified to run and to interoperate with Microsoft software. We do not ship today with Microsoft software preloaded, but are continuing our dialogue with Microsoft to explore new partnership opportunities. Q: What is SUNs position in the longer term when it comes to deliver WS to the EDA market,is SUN leaving the Sparc WS arena? /michael Subodh Bapat (A): Absolutely not, Sun continues to aggressively develop its workstation product line. Sun will have Opteron- based workstations, which will be announced shortly, which will run both Solaris and Linux and are being eagerly anticipated by the EDA market. In the SPARC Workstation market, we will be announcing speedbumps on the UltraSPARC IIIi line later this year, as well as SPARC workstations based on the next-generation US IIIi+ chips next year. Q: I bought JDS from store.sun.com when it came out for the $50 promo price. Will I get the new version automatically? Electronically or CD? Will you be releasing it on one DVD, for installation ease? Herb Hinstorff (A): Your purchase entitles you to updates. See upgrade information at http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/upgradefaq.html We will consider DVD in the future. Q: There's a lot of talk about servers, but what about the future of Sun workstations? Are you planning to sell Opteron workstations? (nice for lower-end workstations) Will UltraSPARC workstations like the V880z continue to be worked on for the high end of workstation tasks? Will the new work with Fujitsu affect workstations at all? Subodh Bapat (A): Absolutely, we have already announced plans for our Opteron workstation line and will be announcing specific product availability shortly. We will continue to aggressively develop the UltraSPARC workstation line with new speedbumps coming out on the US IIIi line and workstations based on new chips next year. We are also considering our options relative the use of Fujitsu technology across the product line but have no specific plans yet around workstations. Q: The RFID test center is a great idea ! Are their other technology trends you see emerging in retail industry that Sun is thinking about ? James Staten (A): We have a large dedicated team working hand-in-hand with the retail industry to address their evolving needs with new innovations. This is a vibrant part of Sun's market and one where we are deeply committed. We are actively seeking new partners in this space. If you are in the retail space and have specific needs, please contact your local Sun sales representative to discuss how we can assist you. Q: What is Sun doing to ensure that the Blade and Ray technologies are not ousted by its competitors? Subodh Bapat (A): Sun is continuing to aggressively develop both its SunBlade and SunRay server technologies. We expect SunBlade to continue to be the leader in the 64-bit RISC workstation market with new speedbumps coming out in the UltraSPARC IIIi product line. There are exciting new developments in store for SunRay, including a variety of new WAN, LAN, and wireless connectivity options which really have many customers excited. Q: Will Sun be using some of the knowledge they have developed with Solaris on the Linux, such as scalable kernels and filesystems? Graham Lovell (A): Sun is already shipping many added value software components, such as Java Enterprise System, with Redhat and SuSE. This will be expanded in the future to include Sun Cluster and possibly other file system components. Sun has shared a lot of code with the open source communities and will continue to do so. Which code and when I am not able to answer. Regards Graham Q: Currently you are offering AMD based platforms in the rack server environment... What are the plans for widening the AMD Opteron line into other intelligence devices such as Storage, Load Balance, etc...? Subodh Bapat (A): We will have a full line of AMD Opteron based systems, including 2-way servers, 4-way servers, 8-way servers, blade servers, and workstations. We also have a complementary line of Storage servers and networking equipment (e.g. load balancers from our recent acquisition of Nauticus Networks). These today are not based on AMD Opteron CPUs, due to their need for specialty microprocessors and other components. As Sun continues to expand its close working relationship with AMD we will continue to explore the ability to apply the Opteron technology to both general- purpose server products as well as other specialty hardware. Q: Why didn't SUN made partnerships with component-builders companies for the improvement of "Sun Java Studio". That would boost the acceptance of the new tool(which is great, btw) Microsoft was "very\u201d successful on doing that, see Infragistics.... James Staten (A): Actually, Sun is doing that today. If you are a component-builder who would like to enhance Studio or have a need for specific components, please let us know via sun.com/developer. You will hear more about the ecosystem surrounding Java Studio and NetBeans at JavaOne. To register today, visit java.sun.com. Q: Is there a special Solaris version for the Fujitsu products or will the standard Solaris install CD's work? Will SUN provide support for both SUN and Fujitsu hardware maintenance? Graham Lovell (A): For many years the CDs that ship in the Solaris media kits include the necessary support for PRIMEPOWER systems. It is the same Solaris as runs on Sun systems with some extra bits that adds support for their hardware specific designs. The only CDs that do not have PRIMEPOWER support included are the ones that were released to support new Sun hardware without adding new features. Yes, Sun will support the systems that it sells. Q: Herb Is there a way I can get a hardware list for JDS? I'd like to use JDS on a laptop with aureal sound. So far all my x86 sound components need patching Herb Hinstorff (A): We are working on one. You may also find information on SuSE kernel compatibility at http://www.suse.com Q: Are there any plans in the future to offer Microsoft Server software on your x86 servers? Subodh Bapat (A): Our x86 servers will be certified to run and interoperate with Microsoft's server software. We are not presently offering Microsoft Server software bundled with our x86 hardware and do not expect to be able to do so in the near future, but we are continuing our dialogue with Microsoft to explore future partnership opportunities. Q: Why aren't JDS PCs available in Canda? Herb Hinstorff (A): Java Desktop System is available globally. walmart.com offers a Microtel JDS for under $500USD. Should be available to you, right? Q: Is the Java Mobile under threat from the MS .net Compact?/ James Staten (A): Java for mobile devices is the dominant platform technology for delivering a robust Internet and application experience. While Microsoft has begun to make inroads in this space Java continues to advance at a faster rate due to the over 3 million Java developers and ISVs who continue to take it in new directions and deliver technologies a single company could never fully address on its own. To learn more about Java on mobile devices, come to JavaOne at the end of the month. You can register today at java.sun.com. Q: Does SUNW's clustering technology complement or compete with the clusting technology from ORCL (i.e., RAC)? Graham Lovell (A): It's complements it. Q: Does sun have any plans to market its own x86 based PC with JDS? Anything new we can expect from the SPARC based pc market? Subodh Bapat (A): JDS is available today on many hardware platforms made by several vendors. It is available today on Sun's SPARC workstation desktop hardware and will also be available on Sun's x86 Opteron workstation desktop hardware. Many customers have asked Sun about an integrated hardware+software product offering from Sun that has JDS running on x86 hardware for the commercial enterprise desktop hardware. Sun is always considering its options, but presently has no plans to make commercial enterprise desktop hardware with x86. On the SPARC side, we are not considering SPARC-based commercial enterprise desktop hardware, but will continue to aggressively develop our SPARC- based technical desktop and workstation product line. Q: When are you going to offer the Sun java destop pre-installed on one of your boxes so that the average non-tech pc owner can use the system without the hassle of setting it up? Herb Hinstorff (A): We are continuing to evaluate ways to make Java Desktop System available pre-installed. Several OEMs offer this capability today, including MicroTel whose systems are available on Walmart.com. Q: What is the future of Solaris x86 considering the new focus on JDS? Graham Lovell (A): We are accelerating Solaris x86 in many dimensions. From twice the performance with scientific apps to a rapidly increasing number of ISV applications. Solaris x86 makes agreat desktop as well as a server -- look for increased support for Solaris as a desktop in the near future. Regards Graham Q: JDS can be used at Home as a family server? Herb Hinstorff (A): JDS can be used at home, but its main functionality is really as a desktop and not a server. Q: id sync for windows is pain to install and configure, please enhance it asap. thank u. Mark McClain (A): We are aware of the issues. Per today's announcements, the technology within ID Synch is being repurposed for consumption in other products within the Identity family of products. Contact your local software rep for more information. Q: Is there any plan for Sun to port Java to support ARM and/or some of the widely used embedded processors? James Staten (A): ARM Ltd. is a Java licensee and there are implementations of Java for many of their embedded processors. To learn more, visit java.sun.com and come to JavaOne later this month. Q: SUN still has an image of a single product company. That product being "Servers". Is there an effort being made to convert SUN also into a service and software company - areas that have higher margins? Mark McClain (A): We are actively working with the industry analysts and press to present a more balanced view of Sun to the marketplace. With today's announcements, we are continuing to provide the best servers and operating systems in the marketplace. However, we have continued to make significant investments in our software and services business, as evidenced by the number and breadth of today's announcements. We will continue to deliver a broad base of solutions for our customers' problems with our investments in hardware, systems, software and services, and our extensive relationships with ISVs and channel partners. Thank you for joining us today. This event is now ending. Check out Sun's special offers by going to sun.com/nc/offers. There you will gain access to download a Sun BluePrints book or get 50% off the hard copy, access to free whitapepers and web-based training, plus a FREE Java powered mobile game. Enroll in one of our programs and take advantage of these special offers! Q: When is looking glass going to be productized? When can we buy it and use it? Herb Hinstorff (A): We are working on it right now. Tune into JavaOne for more information on Looking Glass and stay tuned for the commercial version in the future. Q: Does running Walmarts RFID testing center give you an advantage over your competitors in capturing RFID business mandated to Walmarts vendors (12,000 of them) as well as mandated by the DOD (75,000 of them) James Staten (A): Yes. We have setup the Dallas RFID Center to mimic a WalMart distribution center as closely as possible. This allows Sun and its customers to better pilot implementations that comply with WalMart's requirements. Via our iForce centers we are piloting government RFID solutions as well. To learn more about our RFID test centers visit sun.com/nc. Q: When will the "Java Desktop" be offered on the Solaris Platform with the look and feel that it currently has on Linux? We use SunRay appliances and it would be nice to offer the JavaDesktop look and feel. Herb Hinstorff (A): Good point and we agree. Stay tuned. Q: Will Sun ever move multipathing directly into the kernel like other vendors (Znyx Networks) for a more robust network port failover solution? Graham Lovell (A): In Solaris 9 we added the MPxIO driver for Sun's Traffic Manager, in Solaris 10 we are embedding the whole thing. Way back in Solaris 8 (2000) we integrated the IP multipathing capability which today is still a leading implementation. It allows for pooling of NICs with automated failover, trunking, and bandwidth increases when inserting new NICs. For more info, see the datasheet on Solaris IPMP accessible from http://Sun.com/solaris Regards Graham Regards Graham Q: Again about the TV Ads, I am a big NHL fan, but didn't see any Sun ad, I live in Canada (go Flames :) and the ads on sun.com and java.com are for people who know sun already, Sun should have more ads for the people who do not know Sun - all over the world, not just in the States. ingrid vandenhoogen (A): Go Flames! Got your point! Q: Have you thought about the possibility of porting the Sun Ray client software to something like the PlayStation 2 (or later 3) and delivering the desktop over broadband to consumers? Herb Hinstorff (A): Sun Ray is a stateless client. We are looking at providing broadband capabilities. Q: Are the AMD blades coming out anytime soon? Subodh Bapat (A): Sun already has AMD Athlon microprocessors in our existing uniprocessor blades that are available for the SunFire B1600 blade platform. We are aggressively working on Opteron-based blades for our next-generation blade server, which will deliver outstanding performance for 2 and 4-processor workloads. Dates for this product are presently available under nondisclosure and will be publicly announced soon. Q: Does Sun fully support Unicode on all its products ? If so what is being done for non-latin languages? James Staten (A): Sun works diligently to ensure that the majority of its products comply with all localization requirements where applicable. As with all business decisions, non-Latin language support and full unicode compliance is evaluated based on market need along with many other priorities on a product-by-product basis. If you have a need for localization of a particular product, please contact your local Sun sales representative or post your request to BigAdmin at sun.com/bigadmin. Q: has there been any uptick in commercial activity for javaspaces or equivalent "linda-based" middleware tools? is space-based middleware have any place in the java enterprise roadmap? Mary Slocum (A): Yes, there are a number of industry players adopting Jini today. Check out jini.org for the latest on new commercial products. Q: Is Fujitsu funding any of the development of current or future non- APL Sparc processors used in Sun-branded products? Thank you. Bjorn Andersson (A): Sun and Fujitsu will share cost of development in accordance with their respective scope of the development. Q: Hi. when will Sun release their next service pack for Directory Server 5.2.? Mark McClain (A): Our focus is shifting to Directory Server - Enterprise Edition, with today's announcements, which brings together the core functionality in our Directory, with the enhanced performance and availability capabilities of our Directory Proxy Server. That said, the latest service pack for 5.2 was released with JES 2004Q2, which is downloadable from www.sun.com. Q: what have you done to the srsnetconnect-systems in the last days to get it response so quickly? (I like it that way .-) Trisha Bright (A): Thank you for your feedback. We are continuously investing in our Net Connect infrastructure to improve performance and the customer experience. Q: Im a UNIX consultant in LA., Should I be pushing my customers towards JDS/Linux or Solaris x86? Herb Hinstorff (A): Yes to both :) Our event will be ending in 5 minutes. Please submit any final questions. Q: Will the future focus be on clustering or centralized single high end server? Andy Ingram (A): Yes, all of the above. There are many reasons for and types of clustering. The right answer is usually based upon the application. Where there is little shared state between the nodes (servers), scaling out is a very effective strategy. We see this in web servers, and compute grids. Where there is a high degree of shared state, we believe that a combination of scale up (to reduce overall node count and management complexity) combined with clustering can deliver the best combination of reliability, scalability, and total cost of ownership. Q: What do you see as the main benefits of JDS when compared to XP/Office? [duncan@scottishjava.com] Herb Hinstorff (A): Java Desktop System is much lower cost, avoids proprietary lock in, is less of a virus target, and includes desktop management and developer tools. At $50 per desktop/year Java Desktop System has a far more attractive business and pricing model. Q: Will Sun actively support eclipse like it has done with Net Beans? James Staten (A): Sun, as the shepherd of the Java Community Process and a co-founder of JavaTools.org, actively supports a competitive tools market as this ensures robust, quickly advancing offerings for the community of over 3 million Java developers. Members of the Sun Developer Network receive robust support for Sun's development tools and technologies. We do not directly support the Eclipse IDE at this time but are constantly working with customers to improve our developer offerings. You can voice your requests and requirements to the Sun Developer Community via java.sun.com. Q: Can you talk about future plans to improve the Java VM and Swing for building desktop applications? ingrid vandenhoogen (A): Check out the "Tiger" release at java.sun.com. Give us your feedback at java.net at the desktop community. Q: Will the focus on x86 make UltraSparc irrelevant? Subodh Bapat (A): Absolutely not. Sun continues to innovate in the UltraSPARC product line, our direction being to complement the x86 volume microprocessor line with innovation in other dimensions. For example, our thrust in UltraSPARC is to innovate in the Chip Multithreading area, where we will deliver industry-leading performance for parallelizable thread-rich workloads with microprocessors that are massively multicore and multithreaded. This will provide data center class performance for benchmarks such as TPCC and SpecWeb. Q: Mr McNealy, as a CTO in my last company, I tried moving over 20 developers over to a Java environment from a Microsoft dev environment and it was extremely difficult in the support we received from Sun. Can you suggest a 'channel' to use? A: We have a services program called the Java Center of Excellence which provides consulting and educational services to support customers in this type of migration. For more information, please contact your local Sun sales office. Please also stay tuned for more information on developer support at Java One. Q: Mr McNealy, when is Sun going to offer developer support via their software dev tools similar to MS? Ingrid vandenhoogen (A): Stay tuned for JavaOne later this month. Q: What is the future for Trusted Solaris, and any chance we'll see affordable (self-paced) training be made available for this? Graham Lovell (A): Trusted Solaris is gaining momentum in the market and we recently offered lower pricing for use where certification is not necessary. It is also available for universities and schools at very attractive pricing. Trusted Solaris 10 is well advanced and is planned to be shipping in 2005. It is a rewrite that uses Solaris 10 N1 Grid Containers and integrates so well that it no longer needs its own kernel -- Trusted Solaris 10 will be able to be installed onto a currently running Solaris 10 system. While we do not have self paced training for Trusted Solaris planned, it is a great idea, thank you. Rgds Graham Q: A comment on TV ads, I haven't seen them and yes Sun should do more ads, now more than ever, to sell JDS & familiarize more people to Sun's products. ingrid vandenhoogen (A): Thanks for the advice. We just ran a series of TV ads during the NHL playoffs. We also run regular full page ads in WSJ and other pubs. Check out our online presence at sun.com and java.com. We get millions (10-20M) unique visitors every month. Q: Question regarding Future proofing and Investment protection with APL systems. Will a customers existing investment in either UltaSPARC or SPARC64 be protected by being able to utilise existing processor infrastructure in future APL systems. Bjorn Andersson (A): The APL systems are based on SPARC and Solaris and the Solaris binary compatibility guarantee will apply, providing a unique investment protection. As we've done in the past, we also plan to offer upgrade packages to go from one generation to the next. Q: what are SUNs plans for RFID & agribusiness (beef certification) - from Brazil Mary Slocum (A): Sun has recently opened our first RFID Test Center in Dallas Texas, and has announced our first set of RFID products: RFID Event Manager and RFID Information Server. The first applications for RFID are in the retail industry, but we fully expect RFID to spread to a number of other businesses, including agribusiness. We are always interested in talking to customers about new applications of our software. Contact your local Sun representative. For more info on RFID at Sun see http://wwws.sun.com/software/solutions/rfid/ Q: How do you plan to improve JDS tech support. The way it is now is simply not acceptable .Currently I have a simple issue which is pending for almost 2 month. Mark Herring (A): Thanks for the feedback, we are constantly trying to improve and better our service. Many of our customers have found the FAQ on the web to be very useful. Q: Hi. Will the Microsoft Partnership affect Java's life. ie. the conversion of VB developers to c# / vb.net instead of Java ingrid Vandenhoogen (A): We will working with Microsoft on Java and .Net interoperability. As for Java on the desktop (J2SE) we are working directly with all the major PC OEMs to ship the Java VM on their systems directly. Over 60% of the new PCs ship with the current Java VM and we've had over 45M downloads of the Java VM from java.com since last June. Check out all the Java apps at java.com and if you are a developer, send us your app to include in the catalog. Q: When will Sun be show profits Mark McClain (A): When our revenues exceed our expenses... :-) Q: when will the first niagara system be available Andy Ingram (A): The first Niagara system will ship in 2006. Q: What sort of time frame can we expect a speed-bump of the UltraSPARC-IIIi processors in, for example, the Sun Blade 2500? Subodh Bapat (A): We expect to release higher-speed UltraSPARC IIIi based processors in our workstation product line soon, in the next few months. We expect this product to continue to be a leader in the 64- bit RISC workstation market. Q: Will Fujitsu developed SPARC CPU's be included in the just announced APL? If so, how will they be positioned with respect to Niagara/ROCK CMT chips from Sun? Bjorn Andersson (A): The APL systems range from entry level to high end and will include next generation CPU technology based on SPARC64 in the datacenter class systems. Different CPU's are targeted for different workloads and this will determine the positioning. Q: you mentioned in your earlier remarks that sparc/solaris is producing industry leading performance and price/performance on benchmarks, and yet there is only one sparc/solaris system in the top ten tpcc results from tpc.org. which benchmarks are you referring to? Andy Ingram (A): Recently we have focused on other benchmarks than TPC-C. The problem is that a very high end TPC-C benchmark setup does not represent real world configurations implemented by our customers. Rather we have focused on specific applications such as SAP, Manugistics, and DSS (TPC-H). These are where we have been able to demonstrate world record performance. Q: Regarding Java on Mobile Devices, How flexible is Java in developing mobile applications... Where are mobile browsers headed ? James Staten (A): Java for mobile devices is extremely flexible. The reference implementations provide developers with the ability to apply Java to a wide variety of devices and vary the user experience in very creative ways. On cell phones in particular, the browser market is very vibrant with several vendors adding new enhancements and capabilities to make the browsing experience more robust -- even more than Internet Explorer. If you have specific enhancements you would like to see, bring them to the Java community at java.net. Q: Do you have a lauch date for your linux distribution, and how come you are teaming up with SuSE and Red-hat to make it possiable? Herb Hinstorff (A): Today we announced the second release of Java Desktop System which includes a Linux kernel. Sun adds value above the kernel level, and uses SuSE's kernel which provides broad ISV and hardware support. Q: How do you see the solaris when compared to Linux in future ??? Graham Lovell (A): Please see previous answer to this question. Thx Q: Is it conceivable that the idea of clustering will reduce the need for the high end server systems ? Subodh Bapat (A): Clustering is an important technology that will complement high-end vertically-scaled SMP systems. Clustering allows a large number of small and midrange systems to be configured in a failover configuration for high availability, but they still run different OS images on each clustered system. This is suitable for some applications but not all. For those applications that need a single system OS image, such as a large data warehouse running on several CPUs at once, it is still necessary to run it on a big vertically- scaled SMP machine which can in fact run a single system image of Solaris over upto 72 CPUs. Since a typical data center runs many kinds of appli- cations, we expect both clustered low-end and mid-range systems to co-exist with high-end SMP systems. Q: Let's say that I want to outsource my entire Data Center to Sun to run it and pay per hour for resources utilized. Do you plan such services? Mark Herring (A): We, in conjunction with our partners, already provide this service to some of our customers. We charge for these services based on how big and complex the data center is. Please contact your local sales office so we might provide an accurate quote. Q: Does Solaris 10's new DFS really have a billion billion (10^18) times the capacity of conventional file systems? You don't usually see improvements of that magnitude... Graham Lovell (A): Yes of course. Today's file systems are typically based on 64 bit addressing, Dynamic File System (also known as ZFS), uses 128 bit addressing and the difference is what we are quoting. That said, size is not the only exciting part of Dynamic File System -- check out the ease of operations and data integrity/security enhancements. Thx. Regards Graham Q: Scott you are a man of the people! I have never seen a CEO spend so much time talking to its customers!! Thanks you're doing a great job. Scott McNealy (A): I am glad I took typing class in high school. Thanks. Go Sun! Go to Sun.com and opt in to Boardroom minutes. You can hear from me regularly. Q: is APL based on CMT or is it more convential? Bjorn Andersson (A): APL will include flavors of CMT. For more details I recommend you go to www.sun.com Q: Network computing is not a recent thing, why took so long to sun to enter in this market? Scott McNealy (A): Huh!? We said "The Network is the Computer" back in the 80's. Where have you been? ;-) Q: When will we see a wireless Sun Ray product? Herb Hinstorff (A): You can configure Sun Ray to work with a wireless network today using external components. We are considering integrating additional connectivity options in future generations of Sun Ray Ultra-Thin Clients. Q: Ingrid - not very many NHL lovers, try running on NFL primetime. ingrid vandenhoogen (A): Scott (who is sitting right here) said "hocky rules". But I get your point :) Q: btw, your use of the web for corporate communications has been execellent. it's efficient, timely and informative. Trisha Bright (A): Thank you. Be sure to opt into our ongoing communications at sun.com/subscribe. Q: Do you regret the remarks in a recent article characterising Red Hat software as propriety or do you believe they where taken out of context to generate controversy? Scott McNealy (A): RedHat is becoming defacto proprietary in the sense that apps have to be certified to it, creating a barrier to entry. The Linuxes hav forked like Unixes did. Unix (Solaris) is not proprietary wrt interfaces but also has the same barriers of app certifications. What Redhat has become is VERY expensive. Solaris is about 30% of the price of RedHat on Intel and AMD. Q: In the Q&A talk, it was said the APL systems will use the "Eagle" system design. Wasn't that the system design for the UltraSPARC V (Millennium)? Will these APL products cover HPC workloads? Bjorn Andersson (A): The APL systems will be jointly developed, each company providing key technology that in some cases initially was developed for other projects. HPC continues to be a key focus area for Sun and the APL systems are planned to be able to handle HPC workloads and do well in that market segment. Q: what's the rationale for per gigabyte pricing for storage products? Steve Guzowski (A): Sun is offering customers a more simple and cost effective pricing scheme. We are not offering a $/GB methodology but a $/Sun Power Unit. A Sun Power Unit includes hardware, software and services. By purchasing a yearly subscription the end user does not need to have a significant upfront capital outlay and will be able to pay for the storage system and software as it is utilized. Q: Arthur Harris-We have a significant outlay in Microsoft product, our current issue is that in order to continue to use archived information that is several years to date we need a compatable system to migrate to. How can we use sun to our configuration needs? Mark Herring (A): Please contact your local Sun sales office. We have a variety of offerings that address your needs. Your sales office would be able to coordinate the necessary expertise to make sure the solution scales to your needs and is interoperable. Q: As a primary Linux shop, I have begun to try out a Sun/Solaris server for our web-based apps. I know Sun has started releasing Linux solutions. But what reasons can you give for a customer to go to Sun/Solaris rather than say Sun/Linux, or /Linux? Graham Lovell (A): Thank you for evaluating Solaris for your operations. Sun provides a great deal of added value through services, software (such as the Java Enterprise System), and hardware. Solaris still has the highest volume of ISV applications of any OS today. Regards Graham Q: what products or technologies does Sun have to improve user efficiency, when the user has to move arround different computers? could the user save his environment in one computer and use it in another one? Herb Hinstorff (A): Yes, we have a thin-client product called SunRay that provides that style of user mobility. It saves sessions, and allows a user to move from place to place and continue to "login" to their active session and authenticated with a Java Card. Check out more info at sun.com. Q: Java Studio Creator EA is not available for Solaris x86, will it be at FCS? The product webpage/FAQ makes no mention. Thanks, John groenveld@acm.org James Staten (A): We will announce all the platform availability details and futures upon the final release of Sun Java Studio Creator later this summer. To learn more about Creator and other related developer offerings, come to JavaOne. You can register today at sun.java.com. Q: Are the margins higher, a per dollar basis, in a subscription sales model in comparison to your current business model? Chris Kruell (A): If you do a net present value of the expected revenue stream and cost commitments, we think this model may be less expensive for the customer and more profitble for Sun. Q: Does the Sun Java Desktop System per employee pricing include the Application, Identity, and Portal Servers? Mary Slocum (A): Java Desktop System is the client system. I think you're asking about Java Enterprise System. The application server, the Identity server (now called Access Manager) and Portal server are all included in Java Enterprise System. The new release, Java Enterprise System 2004Q2, is available for download from www.sun.com Q: I am a student, how do I get JDS for free? I haven't seen it anywhere on sun.com? Trisha Bright (A): We offer an attractive educational price for JDS. See www.sun.com/edu -- look in the right-hand area of the banner. You can also access our free evaluation CD which you can download off of sun.com. Q: Do you think UltraSparc IV will be able to keep with the Power5 from IBM while Sun waits for Niagara and APL to arrive ? Andy Ingram (A): Yes. First of all, the level of linear scaling we have achieved with the first US IV processors has exceeded my expectations. On a variety of databases and a variety of workloads (OLTP and DSS), we have regularly measured scaling better than 99% on real world applications. This is not moving from 4 to 8 threads. This is moving from 72 to 144 threads. This is a testiment to the capabilities of Solaris, US IV and the system interconnect. We have measured system bandwidth (based on STREAM(Copy) benchmark) that is over 2x of an IBM 690 system. Moving forward in time, we are planning mutiple speed bumps for the US IV products that we expect will double the throughput once again. We are confident in our ability to compete in this space pending the delivery of the APL systems. Q: what is your perspective on the healthcare industry... we have heard that you have recently laid off your healthcare expert -- are you pulling back on support for the health industry ? Thomas. C Scott McNealy (A): We are very focused on healthcare and see that we have huge opportunity to solve alot of the issues in this market. For instance, HIPPA creates huge opportunities for us to sell our identity products. We have thousands of folks and partners who know, understand and have worked with the healthcare community. Let me know if you need some marketing or sales support. SCott Q: Marketing Question.....do you think Sun would benefit from more TV advertisement, and help developers and admins like myself sell Sun technology to management..merely due to the fact that they see the word "Sun" more? ingrid Vandenhoogen (A): We just ran a series of Sun ads during the NHL playoffs around Sun and Java. Sounds like you didn't see them. We'd love it if developers and admins would pass the word on Sun products to their management. We hope to do more soon.... Q: I have one big question to you, if I'm allowed to do it, probably because of a personal concern, the question is. Sun it's a technical company , fundamental hardware and software developer, but i think in the actual environment companies need to work very close, what we want, what you have and were we can go together, how do you see consulting companies in the middle of this process? Even in the financial issue, already integrating SAP, putting one more time consulting people inside customer and inside developer working together, head to head, end to end, do you feel this market change too? Do you intend grow in some way to face this meters? Mark Herring (A): We are a systems company. We rely on our R&D expertise to provide our competitive edge and our partners to provide the bulk of the consulting expertise across the world. This is a different strategy to some of our competitors, but we believe that working with our partners and not competing against them we create the best value for our combined customers. Q: Digital Media and entertainment markets are getting bigger as each year passes. Apple has iTunes, Sony has Connect in regards to Digital music streaming and downloading but only works on their own proprietary devices and software. Where is Sun in Digital Rights Management? I see great opportunity for Java-enabled devices in the digital media sector don't you guys as well??? James Staten (A): We completely agree with your assessment of the digital media market and the synergies between digital rights management and Java. There are also synergies with our Sun Java System Directory Server and other enterprise products in our portfolio. We will be discussing this important issue and many others at JavaOne at the end of the month. You can register for JavaOne at java.sun.com today. Q: is per employee or per citizen pricing efficient for organizations that are less compute intensive. Scott McNealy (A): This pricing tends to work best for orgs that have a high ratio of customers/constituents per employee. For those who dont fit this model, we still sell ala carte in the old model. Q: Any hints as to when we can expect Opeteron-based workstations - apart from "Stay tuned", that is? :-) Subodh Bapat (A): Opteron-based workstations will be available very, very quickly; stay tuned for some very near-term announcements :-). Q: With Sun stock trading so low and so much good new coming from sun we have not seen much insider buying? Scott McNealy (A): I am already the largest individual shareholder. My financail advisors say I need to diversify. I wont and dont. I am letting it ride on SUNW. Most of the senior team is in the same boat. We are all committed and depending on SUNW to do well. Q: Will Sun be supporting all its Solaris-based hardware and software products on current Fujitsu servers - e.g. storage, HBA's, Sun Cluster, SMC, etc - and will Fujitsu do likewise vice versa - e.g. HBA's storage, Primecluster? Graham Lovell (A): Probably not, though it is a little early to tell. Sun and Fujitsu will still be in the marketplace competing hard. Where it makes business sense to integrate the hardware and software components we will do so, for example, we do envision that we will need to qualify PRIMEPOWER systems for Sun Cluster environments as part of supporting our customers. As we move towards the APL systems, expect to see higher levels of integration of these components. Both companies will be in the market place differentiating by added value such as services, software and hardware offerings. Regards Graham Q: Why Sun push so hard for Java Desktop System instead of working with exisitng Desktop System? Herb Hinstorff (A): Java Desktop System represents the first real alternative enterprise desktop environment in 15 years. It provides real TCO, management and security advantages to our customers. Q: The Register is talking about using Fujitsu´s SPARC64 procesors in the merged product lines. Is this true? Bjorn Andersson (A): Part of the jointly developed Advanced Product Line that is planned to debut in mid 2006 will include next generation technology based on SPARC64 In order to review all the announcements made today go to the NC04-Q2 webcast go to sun.com/nc Q: Any chance of Making the JDS free ? Herb Hinstorff (A): Free for students today and only $50/desktop today. There is also a free eval copy available at sun.com. Q: Any plans to offer *all* of Sun's software for say $250/emp/year? How's that for simplicity! Mark McClain (A): Well, depending on the size of your organization, maybe we should talk... :-) We're always open to creative solutions to our customers' challenges... Q: High end vendors such as Sun have traditionally pitched the superior performance of their point products. They have always had to deal with an attack from below from commodity-based lower functionality hardware. As grid computing become more popular, account control seems to be moving the management layer. We can expect multiple vendor offerings at this management layer with Sun being a major player in grid computing, application management and storage.. But many managers are looking for services. Will Sun develop a complete stack of solutions to provide utility computing, outtasking, outsourcing, verticallly oriented solutions, etc.? Subodh Bapat (A): Many of Sun's customers are asking for differentiated hardware at commodity prices. While costs of basic low- end systems with volume CPUs and memory are at commodity prices, the differentiation has moved up to a higher layer -- namely integrated middleware, superior management, grid enablement, better diag nosability, better serviceability, etc. Sun has the right stacks for all these differentiators in JES, N1, Sun Grid Engine, and others, all available on Solaris and Linux. These are all components of complete solutions available from Sun today, and will continue to be integrated even more tightly on both SPARC and Opteron hardware. Q: Scott, Given that Sun runs the RFID testing center for the worlds largest retailer Walmart, can you explain Sun's lack of visibility regarding RFID technology to Wall Street? Scott McNealy (A): They dont use RFID on Wall St. Yet. Stay tuned. They will discover it. We have announced some really cool RFID software today that works with JES. Check it out. Q: Do you see further integration between Sun's StarOffice and Ximian's Evolution, a la Microsoft's Office and Outlook? And, on a similar point, do you see a tightly integrated JES/Evolution team as a strong competitor to Microsoft's Exchange/Outlook offering? Herb Hinstorff (A): Yes. See http://OpenOffice.org for information on ongoing development activities. Sun Java Enterprise System includes mail/messaging components that offer huge cost advantages over MS Exchange today. Java Desktop System comes with connectors to this environment. Q: How do you see your relationship with IBM? Especially both going away from Microsoft (as in offering alternatives)? Scott McNealy (A): We consider IBM to be our number one competitor. Our new interoperability relationship with MSFT actually gives us a uniquely advantage position wrt MSFT. IBM is on the outside of this cooperation. IBM tries to solve problems with IGS headcount, we try to solve it with innovation and R&D. Q: I have been anxiously waiting the opportunity to try the JES on Linux, and had hoped it would be available with the 04Q2 release. Do you have an availability date for this yet? Mary Slocum (A): Java ES 2004Q2 for Linux will be shipping very soon. Keep your eye on www.sun.com for its arrival. The Solaris SPARC and x86 versions are available today for download from www.sun.com Q: Project Rave (much better name than Java Studio Creator) is nice, but I like the potential of Project Ace more (http://research.sun.com/projects/ace/) I'd like to see this turned into a stand-alone product. Thanks Mark Herring (A): Thanks for the feedback. This is exactly why we have the best engineers working on new ideas and projects in our labs. Q: What's the benifit of Fujitsu servers? Bjorn Andersson (A): We believe that in most cases the Sun Fire servers best meet most requirements, but it really depends on the specific customer requirements. I recommend you take a look at the announcement materials on www.sun.com Q: Can you please describe how you separate the three product lines: APL, CMT and x86? Andy Ingram (A): These systems share the most critical components -- the JES and Solaris software environments. It is the software that defines the interface to the application and the user/operator. The x86 can also run JES on Linux. Beyond the system software, we have taken application workloads and classified them based upon their behavior. At a simple level, wokloads can be classified on a continuum of single threaded vs highly multithreaded and network facing vs data (storage) facing. How one designs the processor and the surrounding system can vary depending upon the needs of the application. Then there are also issues of cost, resiliance and packaging. For example, a workstation is different than a web server which is different than an enterprise database engine. Moving forward, servers built around Opteron and Niagara (CMT) will be optimized for network facing and app server type loads. APL is a more general purpose design raging from the midrage and up. Rock based will be optimized for data facing and certain computational workloads. The other factor to remember is that there are differnt time tables for delivery of these technologies. Q: Is the Dynamic File System, announced today, the "ZFS" that is scheduled for a forthcoming Solaris Express release? Graham Lovell (A): Yes, Dynamic File System (DFS) announced today is the previously code-named ZFS. You can get it today with Software Express and it is part of Solaris 10. Q: Hi Scott, I am a shareholder in Sun. Just find it is really impressive how you have managed Sun and the way you are building Sun for the future. Keep up the good work. And stuff Wall Street.... Scott McNealy (A): Thanks. The best is yet to come. Team is focused, motivated, and talented. We are going to take some big and disruptive swings. We plan on doing some really good things. Today is just another step. Scott Q: Does Sun Services has plan to support third party products directly to address interoperatbility support needs from the customers? Many customers prefer to have one vendor to handle the support for their multivendor envionment. Trisha Bright (A): Sun currently offers third party support and plans to expand these capabilities to provide a seamless service experience to our customers. In some cases Sun will deliver the services directly. We will also partner with best in class providers to provide heterogeneous support. Q: Having difficulty migrating to sun servers from windows servers. What do you have that will allow windows platform products operate in the sun environment?. Mark Herring (A): There are third party products that have been certified by Sun that provide this functionality. An example of a product that does this is Tarantella for others please see http://www.sun.com/executives/iforce/ Q: Solaris 10 looks to be absolutely incredible - how will you possibly be able to top it with Solaris 11? Graham Lovell (A): Solaris 10 will be a hard act to follow for sure. While we continue to have our own ideas for innovation in Solaris, we will be working much more closely with our customers to ensure Solaris 11 grows to become even more customer focused. Look for us to leverage the Throughput computing capabilities to make even more diverse workloads run well, look for increased enterprise computing focus for high availability and ease of operations, and leveraged technologies for increased virtualized workloads. Regards Graham Q: I'm a account manager with a BP in Phoenix, In working with Sun SE's and AM's for the SunRay's and Thin Client products. I am very impressed with the TCO to replace the PC in many of my clients environment. But, I'd like to see more Sun press/advertising/marketing around this product suite. Most customer are virtually unaware of the SunRay product line. Any plans in the future to provide more press around the SunRay's? Herb Hinstorff (A): SunRay is an awesome product! We show customers every chance we can and will highlight in an upcoming security ad since with a SunRay you don't have the security/virus problems you have with a Windows PC. Thanks for the feedback. Q: if you had to pin the future of the company on one of your products, which would it be? PS, this chat window feature is great, can it be licensed? Scott McNealy (A): Solaris/JES. Got Savvis. They can license it to you. It also runs on JDS, which is what I am running as I type this. Go Sun! Q: Do you have plans to merge Sun Grid, SunMC, N1 and SunCluster to provide a single infrastructure & resource management product? James Staten (A): We are glad to see that you recognize the synergies between these products as we do. We are constantly looking at how we can streamline our offerings to increase customer efficiency and reduce your costs. System utilization and management is one area where we have been able to deliver significant savings for our customers and we believe greater savings will come through leveraging these synergies and approaching the problem in new ways. Stay tuned for new announcements in this area or contact your local Sun sales representative to discuss specific enhancements that would improve efficiencies in your environment. Q: Has C# affect the migration of VB developers to Java Mary Slocum (A): Available for early access today is Sun Java Studio Creator, our new development environment for VB users. Check it out at java.sun.com Q: Scott, why aren't HP, Dell.... selling JDS? Walmart.com is not enough at all. Scott McNealy (A): You will have to ask Michael and Carly. We have certainly offered. And they would sell more hardware and services if they got on board. Scott Q: My name is Brian Rockowitz - 1st Vice President of Investments for Janney ontgomery Scott LLC. My question: Why doesn't Sun discuss more with the Wall Street community their current status regarding RFID technology? It is certainly as exciting as nano technology only something happening here and now. Not to mention the existing relationships already established with fortune 500 companies? This could certainly increase shareholder value. Mark McClain (A): We began that process with today's announcement of RFID Software. Sun has now unveiled the second key step in our plan. First, we opened the RFID Test Center in Dallas a few months ago. Now, with the release of this core, infrastructure software to handle RFID Events and RFID Information, as well as our numerous device and software partners in this area, we are positioned very well to work with companies in the retail, Consumer Packaged Goods, and manufacturing industries as they invest in this exciting new technology. You will be hearing more about RFID from Sun in the coming months. Q: Are there any plans to release Java Desktop OS to developers under the same license used with Solaris? Herb Hinstorff (A): The Java Desktop System is comprised of Linux, Gnome, Mozilla, StarOffice, GAIM and sells for $50/desktop per user today. It is more than a OS, it is a full desktop system. Q: Off Topic question for Scott: Now that the Sharks have been eliminated, are you cheering for the Flames or the Lightning :-) Scott McNealy (A): Flames. They beat Sharks so I want them to win. Means Sharks are very close to putting it all together. Plus, I grew up in Detroit, only place you go South in the US to get to Canada. Q: Do you see LINUX as the biggest threat to SUN\u2019s business model? e.g. is LINUX and FOSS the archetypal disruptive technology? Scott McNealy (A): We are leveraging Linux bigtime with our Java Desktop System. And we leverage Linux on the server by porting Java VM, JES, tools, N1, etc to Linux and we certify our Intel and AMD servers to run Linux. We love opensource. Scott Q: With the Fujitsu announcement today, will the new systems incorporate the Niagara and the Rock chips ? Bjorn Andersson (A): The Advanced Product Line includes systems from entry level to high end datacenter class systems, addressing many different types of workloads. It is expected that Niagara based systems will address some of these workloads. When Rock based systems are introduced, which will also be able to address several of the workloads. Q: What are the plans for US IV being implemented into the V880 systems? Subodh Bapat (A): We are aggressively moving our UltraSparc III line in the 4 and 8-way space to the new dual-core US IV generation. Stay tuned for specific announcements on dates and schedules for product availability. Q: When will Project Looking Glass be available to developers ? Herb Hinstorff (A): Check back in at JavaOne, June 28-July 1. Should be exciting for Looking Glass. Q: Will the Waveset products be incorporated into JES? Mary Slocum (A): Identity components are already shipping as part of Java ES. These are Directory and Access Manager (formerly Identity Server). Java Enterprise System 2004Q2 is downloadable from www.sun.com today. We have also announced that the Waveset product and Meta Directory are merging into a single product, called Identity Manager. We are evaluating our next steps for Identity Manager and Java Enterprise Manager. Q: when will the looking glass 3-D desktop be available to the public? Herb Hinstorff (A): See http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/ for an on-line demo. Q: Is Sun considering open source for some of it's key software technologies? Scott McNealy (A): We are the number two contributor of code to the community behind UCBerkeley. We continue to donate code to lots of community efforts. We are always evaluating what else we can offer. Any suggestions? Scott Q: Is SUNW planning to private label the Java Desktop and Enterprise systems? Herb Hinstorff (A): We have an active OEM program for the Java Desktop System with over 21 OEMs signed up. Microtel is selling sub-$500 PCs with Java Desktop System on walmart.com today. Check it out! Q: Scott, What is Sun's strategic plan in implementing the Java desktop and actually getting it into the workplace ? Scott McNealy (A): We just released JDS Version 2 today. We are porting and OEMing the desktop to many companies and countries. You can buy a JDS PC from Walmart.com today. China (CSSC) is in process of rolling out millions of copies of JDS as part of a govt sponsored effort.. Stay tuned. You will see more. Scott Q: Herb, what can you tell us about Looking Glass? Will it be a real product and when? Many people I show the video/demo to want to switch from Windows just for that! Herb Hinstorff (A): Glad that you are excited about Looking Glass. As you can imagine, we are too! We are planning some exciting announcements for JavaOne around Looking Glass and products will come from Sun in the future (sorry no time frame yet). Q: John Matijevic, CCIE #13254, My question is how do you plan to compete with linux operating system in the future. What will seperate Sun vs. other linux redistributions. Sincerely, John Graham Lovell (A): Hi John, great question. The Linux kernel is evolving quickly and the improvements are flowing through the various distributions. Sun will continue to provide value and choice by including Linux in our offerings. With Solaris we have broadened out the platform support, increased capabilities in many dimensions, and are seeing great performance and traction with x86 volume platforms. Innovation in Solaris 10 far exceeds that of any other operating system, don't just take my word for it, try it for yourself for free, go to http://sun.com/solaris-express and download a copy. Sun is also embracing open source with gusto and you will see many more open source components in Solaris 10. Sun has also enjoyed great success with innovative business models and we are differentiating ourselves here too. Regards Graham Q: Hi. What we should expect in next years in J2ME ?? James Staten (A): Java for devices continues to be the market leader for providing dynamic content on small form factor devices (cell phones, PDAs, game systems and much more). It has a rich and vibrant future with new enhancements such as JTWI becoming part of the open standard through the Java Community Process all the time. You will hear about many of these significant enhancements and more about the new markets Java is opening at JavaOne. Register today at java.sun.com. Q: Do you intend to "replace" windows with Java Desktop System in the SOHO market? Herb Hinstorff (A): Our partners have seen significant interest in Java Desktop System from customers in that market. Q: Any news on Sun's channel strategy? Scott McNealy (A): Nothing new except that we will be leveraging the Fujitsu field org much more aggressively going forward with our new level of partnership. We will continue to leverage the channel much more aggressively going forward. Scott Q: When will Sun standardize on a single administrative interface for all storage products? Steve Guzowski (A): NWS has announced formal support of the SMI-S initiative through the SNIA standards committee. This initiative will permit the storage devices and infrastructure to present common management and diagnostic elements. Based on this initiative NWS is focusing its efforts on a common management interface for the Sun Storage Products and a portal for our partners, including ApIq to ensure as common an interface as possible. NWS recentely announced an agreement with ApIq from which we will co-develop management software for Sun Storage platforms in heterogeneous environments. Please stay tuned for announcements at NC04Q3. Q: will you go to shanghai tomorrow? Scott McNealy (A): Nope. Jonathan is handling. Scott Q: JDS on Solaris on SPARC/x86: any time frame you can give? Herb Hinstorff (A): Interesting.... :) stay tuned. Q: What is the Project Looking Glass consumer launch looking like at this point... Any chances of an open source version? Herb Hinstorff (A): If you are a developer, stay tuned. You'll see some interesting announcements at JavaOne later this month. Go to sun.com and sign up for the Looking Glass community mailing list. Q: Fowler said that Sun is only server vendor supporting 3 architectures: Sparc, Opteron & Xeon. How can Sun continue to invest adequately in all three when its server market share is declining? Thank you. Scott McNealy (A): Ths cost of building our Solaris OS, JES, tools, N1, etc is high. Porting to 3 arch does not cost that much extra and gets us much larger total available markets and products. The ROI is very good on this. We have grown server and Solaris unit volumes at 20+% yr/yr for the last three quarters. We are gaining share in unit volume. That usually ends up in revenue share gains down the road. Stay tuned. Scott Q: How does a USIV customer migrate to APL? Bjorn Andersson (A): The APL products are based on SPARC and Solaris. The Solaris binary compatibility guarantee will apply. As the APL products are introduced to the market, we will offer upgrade packages to go from one generation to the next. Q: What's the response like to the Java Desktop System? Are sales in line with projections? Herb Hinstorff (A): The market reaction to the Java Desktop System is tremendous. We are closing deals all over the globe and are excited about the Java Desktop System potential. Q: When will we see a timeline for product interoperability coming out of the deal you did with Microsoft? When do we get specifics? Mark McClain (A): The two companies are actively involved in discussions regarding product interoperability. The same areas we referenced in the original announcement--identity, directory, and federation--are at the center of those discussions. We will publish a timeline as soon as we have an agreed upon set of priorities. Q: Your patch management tools are becoming gui based. Any chance that those of us that are limited to terminals will have new tools? Trisha Bright (A): In addition to the GUI-based tools, Sun will develop more automated capabilities for patch management which may include terminal access. Q: Howcome JDS comes with Suse and not Red hat? Herb Hinstorff (A): For the desktop we found that SuSE provided a high quality kernel. Q: Can you give us the release date of the J2SE1.5? Mary Slocum (A): Stay tuned for JavaOne announcements. It is on its way soon. Q: Is Sun going to merge with another company soon? Scott McNealy (A): Do you know something I dont? Q: do you belive in Grid technolgy? what we'll find in the next release of Sun Grid Engine? Andy Ingram (A): We absolutely believe in Grid as a method of delivering compute capacity. We just launched Java Grid Engine 6.0. The primary benefit is in higher performance and increased resiliancy. Q: when will Sun start benefiting from the Microsoft agreement? Scott McNealy (A): Stay tuned. We hope to have some interesting announcements this calendar year. We are already seeing benefits in the sense that our customers can feel comfortable that Sun is uniquely advantaged with respect to MSFT interoperability with our 10 year framework of cooperation. I doubt IBM or RedHat will get his level of cooperation. Scott Q: where can i test java studio creator? James Staten (A): You can sign up for the Early Access program and download it today from java.sun.com. Q: are the new APL systems UltraSPARC or SPARC64 based? Bjorn Andersson (A): The APL product line will range from entry level to high end data center systems and will use the processors best adapted to each workload, including next generation SPARC64 based processors in the mid to high end. Q: Just how long term are Sun's plans to develop the Sun Java Desktop System? Can we expect it to improved and supported for many years into the future? How often do you expect to release new editions of the JDS? Herb Hinstorff (A): This is a strategic product for us and as such we will continue to invest and innovate over the coming years. Today we announced version 2. Our release timeframes are based on producing high quality products with meaningful features. Q: What does Wall Street fail to grasp when it comes to Sun's fundamental position in the marketplace? Why? Scott McNealy (A): Accrual accounting is very confusing. We should go to cash accounting and our story would be more clear and compelling. We are very focused on long term shareholder value and have done quite well against the market since our IPO. Any given quarter or year vs any other time period can yield different report card. It is all arbitrary depending on when you invested. That said, we have to get our cost structure in place with our current margin situation. And we need to get back to growing revenue again. Unit volumes are growing nicely now. That usually precedes revenue growth. And we are getting the costs out. I like where we are headed. SCott We are currently addressing all of your questions. Questions are being addressed simultaneously by all panelists. Answers may not always be pushed in the order received. Q: Stew Stafford - How does/can RFID play a major roll in homeland security. It seems there should be a great opportunity for Sun. James Staten (A): We think so too. We are involved in a number of RFID pilots delving into security and believe Sun Java System RFID Software, Java, Java Card and Sun Java Enterprise System Identity Management software give us a tremendous competitive advantage. If you are interested in looking at the implications of RFID for your business, please contact your local Sun sales representative. Q: I have alwys used Microsoft products and eagerly look forward to moving away from their products. I am an appraiser and all of my software is designed to be used with a microsoft OS. My question is simple. Will my existing software work on your Operating system. Chas Herb Hinstorff (A): If you primarily use office productivity tools, you will find it very easy to use counterparts in the Sun Java Desktop System. If you have highly specialized application requirements you can check Java.com to see what is available for Java Desktop System. Q: Hows does APL and CMT fit together? I though CMT was going to fit all workloads in the future with ROCK? Andy Ingram (A): APL is a more traditional design utilizing processors with small number of cores and designing an SMP system that combines many processors via an interconnect. Rock represents a more radical design integrating a high number of threads onto a single processor. A system built around Rock has a very different design than APL. Because Rock requires 65 nm process technology, it is a different point in time than APL which rolls out with 90 nm parts. There are other differences as well which allow APL and Rock systems to coexist in the market. Q: GIven Sun's increasing support for Linux are there any plans to phase out Solaris? Graham Lovell (A): Absolutely not. You might be interested in the announcement today concerning an extended alliance between Sun and Fujitsu where we are jointly developing future SPARC technologies on which Solaris will run. We are getting great traction with Solaris on the x86 platforms and screaming performance on Opteron and Xeon systems with both Solaris x86 and Linux. We remain committed to providing value and choice to our customers for volume platforms running Solaris and Linux. You might check out http://sun.com for today's news. Q: Is Studio Creator not going to be free after the 'early release?' James Staten (A): Sun Java Studio Creator will become a commercially supported product upon its global availability later this summer. Q: Thanks for making yourselves available! Data can be managed by the server, the storage and soon by intelligent switches, such as Pirus. Can you please explain how to decide between the three choices, or combination of the three? Thank you. Steve Guzowski (A): The management of storage, not only capacity but performance, is migrating to the network. This migration will take several steps due to the maturity of the technologies and management disciplines. These issues include security, and capacity and performance provisioning. The 6920 which was pre announced today is the first product incarnation of the switch technologies (Pirus) being successfully integrated with the storage and the applications. The 6920 will permit multiple storage domains with unique performance profiles optimized for the application. The 6920 will bring common data services available across multiple applications running on disparate hosts as well as supporting heterogeneous storage. Q: On Fujitsu deal.... We and Fujitsu are competitors as well. What are the revenue impact on common market share? Bjorn Andersson (A): We do not provide that kind of forward looking forecasts. Q: What percentage of the "Java Desktop Product" is developed by SUN as apposed to the OpenSource Community eg less than 1% or greater than 1% Herb Hinstorff (A): Sun is part of the Open Source community and as actively contributed to many of the projects that make up Java Desktop Systems, as well as Linux distributions distributed by companies like Red Hat. Sun heavily contributes to OpenOffice.org, GNOME, Mozilla, to only name a few. Like other Linux distributions, Java Desktop System provides extensive testing and integration, along with user-friendly management and update facilities. Q: Sorry to be off topic, but I was wondering what is Sun doing to improve Java applets especially improving the speed of lunch of Java applets, I have heard that Sun didn't put a lot of work on this technology. Will you be pushing applets or not in the foreseable future. Thank you a lot in advance. James Staten (A): Good question. Yes, we are definitely addressing this issue with an upcoming enhancement to Java. Stay tuned to hear more about this at JavaOne at the end of the month. To learn more, go to Java.com. Q: What happened with the Sun Cluster for Solaris x86? Mary Slocum (A): Sun Cluster for x86 is shipping today. It is available for web download; and is a component product of Java Enterprise System 2004Q2. Go to the following URL to download the software: http://wwws.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem/get.html Q: We have a client who is about to move their data center from in- house to one managed by HP. This will involve a variety of platforms including Sun servers. They are currently inquiring about moving the apps we manage off of Sun due to an apparent lack of UNIX expertise at the new data center. Aside from suggesting that they train these people, I would like to be able to show, by way of independent studies, whitepapers etc., the superiority / reliability of Solaris over Windows or Sun hardware over the others. I have always believed this to be the case, but now I need real evidence. What data is available? Trisha Bright (A): We have information we can share with your customer. Please work with your local Sun sales representative and request to be put in touch with Sun's quality office. Q: When is Sun going to release the benchmarks for Solaris on the V20z which John Fowler discussed in today's Sun-AMD roundtable? Thanks, John groenveld@acm.org Graham Lovell (A): Hi John, I missed John's comments but I know we have these internal benchmarks running today as part of Sun's Atlas program and in the group that does performance regression testing of Solaris 10. I will post a follow up to the Solaris x86 alias once I have had time to investigate further. Q: I work for a Sun ISV partner. Whats the advantage to Sun if I offer my customers an "ASP" model using Sun Hware and Software? James Staten (A): As you have probably noticed Sun is moving its offerings to a subscription model that is very much in line with the ASP biz model. ISVs that embrace subscription pricing compliment our offerings creating a stronger joint value proposition. Q: Are all the Sun and Fujitsu product line eventually going to merge? Bjorn Andersson (A): The agreement that was announced today focuses primarily on one product generation, the Advanced Product LIne (APL), and doesn't cover what happens after that time period. APL will be jointly developed and offered by both companies starting in the mid 2006 time frame. Q: Based on the work done by Sun with its Project Janus, does the project look technically feasible ? When will the idea be incorporated into its products ? Graham Lovell (A): Project Janus is an exciting project that provides the ability to run Linux apps on Solaris x86 unmodified. It is going very well indeed and showing great promise for both functionality and speed. You will find this project in Software Express for Solaris probably late summer, fall timeframe. Q: I'm a sales rep with Fujitsu and we just go the announcement of the alliance. How do you see our companies collaborating on customer accounts currently using both companies products? Bjorn Andersson (A): Part of the agreement is that both company's products will be available through the other company's sales channels. However, each customer situation is unique so there's no blanket statement. I recommend you contact your Sun sales rep. Q: what do you think of java future James Staten (A): Java's future is extremely bright. With over 250 million Java-enabled devices in the market today (most cell phones, over 60% of all PCs, millions of Java Cards and a variety of other devices), over 3 million Java developers and dominant share in Application Servers, Java has never had a stronger market position. You will hear much more about the dynamic, vibrant Java ecosystem at JavaOne at the end of the month. Go to java.com to learn more. Welcome to the NC04-Q2 live chat with Scott McNealy. Please start asking your questions! We are ready to begin! |