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Sun Microsystems Hardware

Sun to Merge UltraSPARC with Fujitsu's SPARC64? 132

Posted by michael from the dying-gasp dept.
Waldmeister writes "The Register has a story from a japanese source, that Sun and Fujitsu are planning to combine their Unix server businesses. Even if Sun doesn't comment on this, they acknowledge that Scott McNealy met Fujitsu's CEO this week. If this will happen, Fujitsu will get the bigger chunk of manufacturing and engineering. With the PrimePower systems outperforming Sun's SunFire systems for some time now, this sounds reasonable, too. And it gives Sun the chance to more resources to extend their Linux and x86 business." There's also a Reuters story.
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Sun to Merge UltraSPARC with Fujitsu's SPARC64? More

Sun to Merge UltraSPARC with Fujitsu's SPARC64?

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  • New name... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:34AM (#7289346)
    will they name the new company Sun-tsu?

  • Hope this doesn't effect... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... Their multi-core CPU plans.

    • Re:Hope this doesn't effect... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, it would appear to accelerate those
      plans:

      Sparc 64 Roadmap writeup [theinquirer.net]

    • Re:Hope this doesn't effect... (Score:3, Informative)

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

      SPARC64 chips outperform Ultra in many ways,

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

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

      more reliable too.
    • Affect, not effect - affect is the verb, meaning to cause a change; effect is the noun, meaning the result of the affect:
      affect tr.v. affected, affecting, affects

      1. To have an influence on or effect a change in: Inflation affects the buying power of the dollar.

      effect n.
      1. Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.

  • SPEC 2000 scores Fujitsu/Sun (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:41AM (#7289382)
    It does seem like Fujitsu has the edge with
    their SparcGP4 chip...

    CINT2000

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

    CFP2000

    Fujitsu Limited PRIMEPOWER650 (1350MHz) 1340 1096 1
    Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V880(1200MHz) 1082 923 1
    • Scott McNealy is taking the advice indicated in "SPARC64: Quick Fix for Sun's Problems [slashdot.org]", an article posted on Slashdot itself. The SPARC64-V and its followup, SPARC64-VI, easily outperform the UltraSPARC III and upcoming UltraSPARC IV.

      The originally proposed quick fix is to simply redesign the the Sun servers to accept the SPARC64-V. An even better proposal, now leaked by the press, is to simply discontinue the Sun-designed servers and to sell re-branded Fujitsu designed servers. The latter proposal is

  • Are they or are they not joining? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:44AM (#7289398) Homepage
    Here's the latest updated article [marketwatch.com]

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


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

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

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

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


    Too much news being leaked? Or is there another reason to not confirm this at this time?
    • Sun Microsystems (SUNW) is being rapidly forced off the desktop. SUNW has no intention of hanging around in the workstation market because SUNW does not make a competitive product. Athlon64 and Prescott have and will, respectively, lockup the workstation market. PowerPC970 (in G5) is the wild card and can capture a nice 20+% of the market if Steve Jobs were not so clueless.

      Now, SUNW is conceding the market for high-end servers [slashdot.org].

      SUNW recently purchased Afara. It supplies processors for low-end servers.

    • But I thought Sun didn't have a Linux strategy...

      Obviously they do have a Linux strategy, in the same sense as MSFT has a Linux strategy.

      Perhaps they can now focus on expanding their co-operation with SCO.
      • Perhaps they can now focus on expanding their co-operation with SCO.

        I have a tinfoil helmet too! Can I play?

        Obviously Sun is soon going to be selling 64-way itanium machines running 64-bit Windows, while SCO kills of any semblance of UNIX, BSD and Linux business out there to let Microsoft rule the world, once and for all.

        The plan is nearly complete.

        • Obviously Sun is soon going to be selling 64-way itanium machines running 64-bit Windows, while SCO kills of any semblance of UNIX, BSD and Linux business out there to let Microsoft rule the world, once and for all.

          They don't need to kill Unix or BSD, they are not their competition. Linux is. Unix is dying anyway (the next generation of Linuxes running Linux 2.6 will all but finish it off) and nobody is going to jump Solaris for another Unix. MSFT and Sun share their common enemy: Sun->Linux migration
        • I have a tinfoil helmet too! Can I play?

          Sure. Start by getting acquainted with SUN's FUD campaign [sun.com] about SCO's claim.
    • But I thought Sun didn't have a Linux strategy...

      Well, it's Thursday. They have Linux strategy on Tuesdays and Fridays.

  • Extend their Linux and x86 business? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:57AM (#7289472) Homepage
    Really? "Sun has no Linux strategy and that the server maker offers Linux only because customers ask for it [linuxtoday.com]", and "Linux is a 'great environment for the hobbyist' but not for corporate IT shops [techtarget.com]" McNealy and software vice president Jonathan Schwartz at SunNetwork in San Francisco, 16th September 2003.

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

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

    • Sun may not have a focused Linux strategy, but you can bet that Fujitsu does. In addition to the PrimePower line of SPARC-based servers, they have their Primergy line of Intel-based servers that can easily run Linux. Fujitsu's Linux strategy hasn't been well defined yet, but they would be remiss to not jump on that bandwagon ASAP.
      • >
        a focused Linux strategy, but you can bet that Fujitsu does. In addition to the PrimePower line of SPARC-based servers

        Yet the Fujitsu PrimePower web page says nothing about GNU/Linux. Perhaps it is a GNU/Linux strategy focusing on ignoring GNU/Linux, or even not existing at all?

    • I suspect a lot of FUD filled editorial is going to be written under banners like "Has the SPARC gone out for Sun?" real soon now.

      No need to wait:

      If you think than BSD is dead then you should look at SPARC and Solaris
      .

      • Re:who's dead? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.*): BSD, dead
        Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.*): SysV

        Nice try.

    • How on earth did you manage to shove Linux, SPARC, listening to customers, losing sense of direction, FUD, editorials and Apple's star in just a few sentences?

      On Slashdot I expected:
      - Sun's focus on Solaris for servers to be considered "losing focus", "stupid decision", "not supporting Linux" and so on.
      - Premonitions of FUD coming from McNealy, even FUD coming from editorials.
      - The expression "real soon now".
      - Praise for Apple (not that Apple has anything to do with Linux, but what the hell, nobody will no

  • Sun Shine on AMD? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:00AM (#7289487) Homepage Journal

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

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

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

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

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

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

    • Re:Sun Shine on AMD? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sun should climb on board the AMD Opteron with Linux.

      And what's so special about Linux that Sun should climb on board it?

      • Well, it doesn't crash very easily. (grin)

        • Re:Sun Shine on AMD? (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Well, it doesn't crash very easily. (grin)

          Neither does Solaris/x86. And, 64-bit Solaris has nearly a decade's worth of deployment in the real world behind it.


      • And what's so special about Linux that Sun should climb on board it?
        • It's one of very few platforms with strong growth in deployment.
        • It's still missing some features that Sun is one of the few companies that knows how to provide.

        The latter point is less about what's special about Linux (technically, Solaris and FreeBSD are fine OS, too, they just aren't growing in deployments as much), but about what's special about Sun.

        As cheap Linux servers become more prevalent, customers will be more willing to u

    • Re:Sun Shine on AMD? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jungle guy ( 567570 ) <brunolmailbox-ge ... o DOT com DOT br> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:54AM (#7290513) Journal
      Have you beeen hiding on a cave? Sun is flirting with AMD, and looks like they have serious plans to port Solaris on 64 bits to AMD-64. Check out this story [search.com]. It looks like the open letter from that Merryl Linch analyst is working. I also think that Sun should focus on software and complete solutions, and stop messing with processors too much.

      • Re:Sun Shine on AMD? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by leandrod ( 17766 )

        >

        Sun should focus on software and complete solutions, and stop messing with processors

        Sun has a proprietary lock-in with tons of Solaris SPARC applications on its customers.

        Besides, if Sun just built IPF computers just as everyone does, it would be on its path to irrelevance, and this path is already leaded by Unisys. It would be very little to differentiate from Unisys, Dell and the such, and margins would suffer accordingly.

        As it is, UltraSPARC systems are faster than Intel ones, even if proce

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

      It should be mentioned that the Sparcs produced by Fujitsu tend to benchmark significantly better than the ones Sun is getting from TI...Doesn't seem like such a loss to me.

  • This would make a ton of sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nelsonal ( 549144 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:08AM (#7289532) Journal
    SUN's biggest problem is that they employ a ton of chip (second only to Intel) and system designers to design their systems. As I understand it, Fujitsu develops their own chip compatable with the SPARC architecture. The two companies are now competing with Intel who sells 100 million CPUs a year (Xeon doesn't require a whole lot of R&D beyond a regular P4), in a good year they both might sell 5 million CPUs (I'm not positive about fujitsu's unit volumes) so their cost per chip is significantly higher. Combining these efforts should help both companies reduce costs, by spreading lower development costs over more CPUs, and might help them compete with the new IA-32 based competitors.

    • Re:This would make a ton of sense (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chrysrobyn ( 106763 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:27AM (#7289667)

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

      I see two alternatives:

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

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

      • With the newly idle systems designers, Sun should:

        • Produce at least a 32-way POWER system that can be partitioned. G4s can be obtained from Motorola if IBM is at all hesitant.
        • Revive Solaris for the POWER architecture (I remember it as an option on a 43P).
        • License Mac OS X Server, and make changes to the kernel to allow it to fully scale.

        In addition, Sun should do the same with Opteron (and perhaps Itanium), supporting Solaris across the entire line, and hosting platform-specific operating systems wher

        • Produce at least a 32-way POWER system that can be partitioned. G4s can be obtained from Motorola if IBM is at all hesitant.

          Maybe you didn't notice, but Apple switch to IBM as a chip producer because Motorola's Power architecture chips suck by comparison? Motorola really isn't all that terribly interested in producing PC chips.

          Revive Solaris for the POWER architecture (I remember it as an option on a 43P).

          What conceivable advantage does this have over Solaris on Sparc?

          License Mac OS X Serve

        • # Produce at least a 32-way POWER system that can be partitioned. G4s can be obtained from Motorola if IBM is at all hesitant.

          # Revive Solaris for the POWER architecture (I remember it as an option on a 43P).

          If I want an IBM system, I'll buy it from IBM. I can't see any reason to buy an inferior (assuming older CPUs) IBM from Sun. IBM already does a really good job of building IBM systems. They are somewhat hamstung by the antipathy toward AIX, rather than hardware issues, which is probably why they

    • As I understand it, Fujitsu develops their own chip compatable with the SPARC architecture.
      Yep. Or, to be pedantic, Fujitsu has another implementation of the SPARC. There is nothing magic about Sun's one except that they invented the whole architecture. The SPARC is actually an open specification [sparc.org] available to, and used by, others as well (for money, it's not that open...)

    • Re:This would make a ton of sense (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm sure every engineer at Sun would love to go all out and build a new RISC chip to bowl over AMD and Intel. The question is why don't/can't they?

      That's what kept RISC ahead of CISC 10 years ago. SGI thought nothing of bowling over Intel's best 486 with a CPU twice as fast (R4000). That kind of performance carried a premium price. They didn't stumble until Beast and Alien got cancelled, when Intel gave SGI management cold feet.
      • The question is why don't/can't they?

        Sun doesn't understand OOE? They can't compete on process with Intel? They're constitutionally committed to a loser architecture? Mostly, the numbers don't add up: by the time they designed and fabbed this Intel killer -- for the sake of argument, we'll call it "Alpha" -- Intel would be ready to roll out a Pentium 8 on a process at least three generations ahead.

        'jfb

    • >

      Combining these efforts should help both companies reduce costs, by spreading lower development costs over more CPUs, and might help them compete with the new IA-32 based competitors.

      Actually mergers tend to diminish the competitiveness of the platform. Instead of two entities competing against each other, you have one only with a reassuring proprietary lock-in that tends to make them lazy. Not to mention that culture clashes tend to impair the ability to execute.

      Now if they were migrating, as s

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MImeKillEr ( 445828 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:12AM (#7289560) Homepage Journal
    .. any bets on how long it'll take Darl to start foaming at the mouth, claiming that Fujitsu now owes SCO some $ due to partnering with Sun?

    Anyone?

    I give it a week, two max from when it's officially announced.
    • Generally, when Darl is talking, it isn't out of the mouth...

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by illumin8 ( 148082 )
      .. any bets on how long it'll take Darl to start foaming at the mouth, claiming that Fujitsu now owes SCO some $ due to partnering with Sun?

      Not going to happen. Fujitsu licenses Solaris from Sun for use on their Sparc64 servers. As SCO has already stated, Sun purchased a license that allows them to do whatever they want with the System V code, including selling derivative works. As far as I know, Sun is the only vendor right now that can legally sell you a Linux distro, at least according to SCO.
  • and brings market share back up, it will really be the land of the rising Sun...
  • And it gives Sun the chance to more[sic: move ] resources to extend their Linux and x86 business.

    You're either very cynical and this sarcastic, or your're just naive.
    Merging does free up resources, it's true. Those resources are then promptly kicked out the door to reduce payroll, not shifted to extend the x86 business that they've already cut.

    Sometimes I worry that no matter how cynical I become, it will never be enough to keep up. -- Lily Tomlin

    --

  • They have to (Score:1, Insightful)

    by ewn ( 538392 )

    Look at this Slashdot story [slashdot.org] from Feb 2003. The article referenced there shows that in 64bit land there are haves (Intel, AMD, IBM, SPARC64 and still around: Alpha) and have-nots (everybody else, including UltraSPARC, PA_RISC and MIPS). For Sun, the most logical way to stay competitive in the performance race and get out of the losers' gene pool is to join forces with Fujitsus SPARC64 program. So it looks like the natural thing to do.

    • Re:They have to (Score:4, Informative)

      by Biolo ( 25082 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:03AM (#7290635)
      UltraSPARC not 64 bit? Since when? We have Ultra1 machines running Solaris in 64 bit mode. SPARC was 32 bit, UltraSPARC is 64!

      • Re:They have to (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ewn ( 538392 )

        Where exectly did i claim that UltraSPARC was not 64 bit? Where did you get that from?

        The article i mentioned shows pretty clearly that on a diagram SPECfp vs SPECint for a the common 64 bit processors there are two groups. For brevity, let's call them "fast" and "slow". Intel, AMD, PPC, Alpha, and SPARC64 are in the "fast" group, UltraSPARC and the others are "slow". Let me quote the author, Paul DeMone:

        What is particularly striking [..] is the prominent bimodal division of high end processors into "h

        • > Where did you get that from?

          There are two main possibilities:

          1) They got it from the crack pipes they're smoking;

          2) Our society is becoming so poorly educated that people no longer understand the meaning of "haves and have-nots."

          In the case of number 2, number 1 probably also fits in somewhere.

          Or maybe they're just stupid. You pick :-)

        • Re:They have to (Score:2, Interesting)

          by AusG4 ( 651867 )
          Well, I'd argue that performance of a CPU is but a single indicator of it's overall worth.

          That said, suggesting that Sun won't be able to sell hardware in the future with their SPARC processor based systems is a little short sighted and misses some key points.

          Firstly, Sun is a very capable company when it comes to building systems that have more CPU's then their x86 competitors. We have 2 E4x00 machines with 12 CPU's each and they run like clockwork. Finding intel machines with many more than 8 CPU's is a
          • That still doesn't help Sun compete with IBM and HP who have numbers and speed. I have the same experience with Sun vs. Intel hardware, but Sun vs. the other serious server companies is a very different story. With good IBM hardware, you can have CPU failures and not lose your OS, as you will with Solaris, supposedly anyway; I haven't had a chance to test that.

            Sun's strength right now is more a matter of installed base. People with mission-critical Sun infrastructure are hesitant to take the risk of sw

  • Linux.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:33AM (#7290252) Journal
    On every desktop at work, we have 2 machines, a dell laptop and a sun workstation. And over the last few years, everyone started putting linux on the sun workstations. Gnome helped keep some users on Solaris, but the main people switched to KDE and SuSE linux.

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

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

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

    Doesnt make sense.
    • "by x86 servers from a true x86 company like Dell"

      Reliability? PC parts (even dell) are cheap crap with a design life of a few years. Sparc systems are designed to last a decode
      , in fact I'm still using a sparcstation 20 on my desk and it NEVER goes wrong. Until the POS PC I'm writing this on which has had 2 hardware faults in the last 18 months.
      • I have some 486's that are still going strong also.

        But seriously, Even Sun Servers have hardware problems, ecache and other cpu errors are very common, we almost loose 1 a day in our data center. Thou we are over thousands of systems, so a CPU/HD replacement every other day is common. Sometimes a Sun system needs to be replaced, but on par the Dell/Compaq/Sun servers are the same in hardware replacements. Desktops, i have no idea, other than dell laptops which do get lots of work. But then laptops dont sit
      • high end HP/Compaq systems do have hot swap & heavy duty diagnostic/monitoring, and I've worked with ones that are 5-8 years old and still going strong.
      • So? PC parts are a commodity. You're still able to use that POS PC with 2 hardware faults, and it can have 3 more and still have a lower TCO.
        • ... but the downtime and possibility of lost transactions are much more expensive than the hardware replacement. On desktops it may not matter too much, but in datacenters, frequent hardware replacement is not acceptable. In a manufacturing environment, it's very easy for a few hours of downtime on a multi-million dollar cluster to cost the company much more than the purchase price of the cluster.
    • Why would you buy x86 servers from Sun that run linux, when you could by x86 servers from a true x86 company like Dell? OR buy support from Redhat, a true linux support company?

      Because last time I checked, RedHat didn't have support engineers available worldwide on a 24x7 basis that are competent in Unix or Linux and willing to drive out at 2:00 in the morning when your Dell PowerEdge server bites the big one. Big customers buy systems that are supported by the vendors, and they want a one stop shop. Th
  • My only question is who.

    I could see IBM or Motorola or HP or Fujitsu as strong candidates to take over sun. Besides Sun's large bank account, they dont really have much going for them in the long run. Unless they use that money to come up with some awesome marketable product, they are done. But they have so many patents and such a large install base I just cant see them closeing shop entirely, someone is gonna pick them up. The question is who and when.

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