Sun Announces Its First Laptop 365
boarder8925 writes "Enterprise computer maker Sun Microsystems announced its first-ever laptop yesterday, saying the machine was designed to let engineers and scientists perform demanding computer tasks away from their desks. Sun, which has seen sales fall for the last four years, said that it was also lowering prices for some of its computers by up to 40 percent."
Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't stand dealing with HP on a number of levels, one being how they've handled the Proliant brand of servers. Dell couldn't possiblity have a decent channel partner program since their whole business model is focused on direct sales. IBM is an option, but it's apparent that they're trying to get out of the hardware business and further into the more lucrative services biz. The (obvious) alliance between IBM Global Services and IBM's hardware divisions would make me feel like I'm sleeping with the devil. The big selloff to Lenovo was the real wakeup call for me. And rounding out the bunch: Toshiba seems to only be half interested in playing in the space, and their lackluster offerings reflect that.
Sun interests me because they have brand recognition and seem to be increasingly investing in the market. Until rather recently, I didn't even know that they sold wintel boxes. However, news such as the release of this notebook further shows their intent on being a contendor. My biggest concern is that Sun gear tends to overly pricey, but if they're addressing that I might just start buying from them. Does anyone have experience with partnering with Sun on the hardware end of things? What kind of reputation do they have? Or can anyone suggest another server vendor that I could investigate? I realize there are a thousand white box vendors out there, but I'm more interested in a mature partner program: coop marketing opportunities, top-notch support resources, etc.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
While Suns tend to be pricey, it's because their built like tanks (both in terms of chasis/frame, and from CPU and internal layout). Like Macs, they're designed to work well, and you have to pay the designers.
A while ago AnandTech had a review [anandtech.com] on Sun's V40z [sun.com].
You could also call up Sun and ask them for a loaner. They frequently let let people try out machines for a couple of weeks to run them through their paces. You can get either Solaris or Linux installed. BTW, make you open the box up and look at the internals: they're very well designed from a space, air flow, and maintenance point of view (part of the cost).
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
While that used to be true, I don't think it's true anymore. You can still find good, solid boxes, but the parts inside fail every bit as much as our Dells and Proliants. Everything from disk drives, to backplanes to memory. All of these have failed on me at some point in the last year with three year old boxes. Truth be told, our IBM x-series cluster has outlasted any other piece of hardware in our shop.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
Your not going to get any more reliability out of a Sun server than you would get with an equivalent, yet less expensive, x86 based server.
Oh, and to get back on topic, why would someone want a dog-slow Sparc for a laptop? Is there really any software out there that _only_ runs on Sparc Solaris and not x86 Solaris or Linux? Your going to get far more performance and a much better price out of an x86 laptop than a Sparc based one. Just RTFA! The Sparc laptop is $3,400! The specs on it suck. 512MB and 40GB? For $3,400 for a laptop, I better be getting some state-of-the-art hardware and not some dog-slow sparc with poor specs. ; )
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
But how about a Sun opeteron box?= SunStore&cmdViewProduct_CP&catid=111394 [sun.com]
A ppleStore.woa/70902/wo/Oo1dIs4kylfo25YF33W1KKyrgua /0.0.11.1.0.6.15.0.3.1.3.0.3.1.6.1.1.0 [apple.com]
Sun v20z: 2x Opteron 248, 2GB Ram, 1x73GB disk, $3000: http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CEServlet?process
G5 Xserve: 2x G5 2.3Ghz, 1GB Ram, 1x 80GB disk, $4000: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:4, Interesting)
for real Sun engineering, you need to look to the older models, like the sunfire 280R. we run those too and you can see the difference when you open them up. and in the performance.
my point being; if you look at any of Sun's webcasts, you'll see Jon Schwartz go on about 'the era of commodity computing'. cheaper boxes is Sun's response to that trend. dunno 'bout this laptop, though!
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:4, Interesting)
Come to find that Sun's own support for Solaris 10 and indeed for Solaris x86 is sad to say the least. Many of their management apps/tools do not support Solaris x86 or Solaris 10 yet. Major issues with, say, disk drives... patches are out for 9, but not for 10 yet. C'mon, folks, get with the program.
Their hardware's been OK, but frankly, that doesn't make up for the rest of the hell that is dealing with them. Don't get me started on their documentation.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
The bank I work for started their Linux initiative, so we bought in boxes from Dell, HP and Sun to trial Linux on. 2 Dell 2850's, 3 HP DL-380's and 3 Sun Fire V65x's.
Firstly, the sun's don't ship with hardware RAID by default. As soon as you add this, they start to look more expensive than all of the competition.
Within the first 6 months I had one critical hardware failure PER MACHINE! And even though these machines were under maintenance, Sun considers a motherboard in a V65x to be a user servicable component. So when the board blew, I had to swap out the memory, the disks and the CPUs into another box. This is NOT what I pay maintenance for!
We had no problems at all with the HPs or the Dells.
On the enterprise hardware front, I've had two major failures in the last 2 days. For one of them, sun advise that I leave a terminal connected in the data centre and run down and see what messages are on the screen when it crashes. This is what you pay sun for!
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
We purchased 40 V60x servers (the 1U equivilent to your V65x) 18 months ago; we also have one V65x, which is statistically uninteresting. We also don't care about RAID.
Of the 40 V60x servers, I've had one failed mainboard and one ethernet jack that doesn't hold onto its ethernet wire properly. That's it. Oh, and Sun sent a guy to fix the mainboard for me. Regular warrantee, no extra service.
Of course, since I'm Canadian, I might be more special than you Americans.
What really annoyed me is that we bought into these computers, and then Sun goes and EOLs them for the Opterons, which are not immediately suitable for what we are doing with them. We are looking at the Opterons, but these V20z systems are rebadged computers, not Genuine Sun Things. (For the record, yes the V60x computers are also rebadged computers, but they work pretty well.)
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll bet that every system administrator here will have a vendor that has let them down and you'll find other system administrators who will swear by that equipment. Me, I still prefer the Sun boxes for UNIX and I'm sort of neutral on the Win32 vendors.
They fucked up Java
How so? My group does a fair amount of development in a variety of languages (C/C++/Java/VB/C#/and various scripting languages) and by far, the developers prefer Java. I guess I don't see how Sun messed up Java as you indicate.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite the opposite, in my opinion. They finally fixed all the stupid stuff.
If you say that type-unsafe containers, no enums and no normal library for various threading feature was somehow a better state of affairs, then you do not know what you are talking about.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:3, Insightful)
J2SE 5 actually is quite a good platform - they have improved performance, and almost all the sytactic sugar features they implemented are "free" from a performance perspective, while streamlining the code.
The only exeception I know of is the enum's
I guess we just disagree.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:3)
I'm not saying the concept of generics is wrong. I am saying the java implementation of generics is broken. This implementation introduces a lot of subtle runtime errors because they are not typesafe, as many believe.
These generics only save you from a a few casts.
The only runtime errors that will be moved to compile time errors are very stupid err
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm currently managing 3 SunFire 280R's that were purchased in 2001 (among other systems). Total number of failures during 12+ 24/7/365 operational years: 0. Not even a single hard drive or dimm failure. Given my sample size (3x yours), Sun is more reliable than anything else. Do I think that are the best ever? No way. I have a PII gateway desktop in my basement running as a server. It has been running since '98. Mine has been perfect, yet where I work I've seen dozens fail.
Want to know the most unreliable box I have? A Dell 1650 that randomly reboots at least once a week (its running linux). Dell refuses to do anything about it because "the diagnostics dont show anything". Just what I dont want to hear from the support folks.
In general, sun servers have declined in quality simply because nobody was willing to pay the $100,000 it takes for a totally custom box. The memory in a new sun system? Micron or Kingston. The hard drive? Hitachi, Fujitsu, Seagate, etc. The cpu? AMD (for the Z line). NIC? broadcom.
What does IBM or HP put into their boxes? Yup, same parts. Do you really think that they will spend R&D resources on designing and testing their own ethernet chips? Not at under $400 for a quad gig pci card they wont.
In general, you get what you pay for when it comes to reliability. A $4,000 sun box will not be more reliable than a $4,000 IBM/HP/Dell/whoever box. A $2,000,000 SunFire 25K will be a lot more reliable than a $4,000 Dell box (is it worth it? depends on your environment).
So how do I choose vendors? Simple, their proven ability to support me when something does go wrong over the full lifetime of the box (5+ years). All vendors have their 'lemons' (Sun 420R anybody? how about Intel's floating point bug that impacted every intel vendor?). It's how they deal with them that makes the lasting impression and determines if it is time to go look for another vendor.
When a vendor fails to fix any problems, thats when I start to walk. So far, I'm staying with sun because their support has not let me down. When they decide to cut corners on support and it impacts my operation.... Well, that is the day I'm going to be an ex-sun customer.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:3, Funny)
I've got a Mr. Murphy on the line for you. I think he's some kind of Policeman.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's great. Thanks for sharing your wealth of experience on the subject.
You often hear this stuff from windows users who probaby wouldn't know RSC from OpenBoot. Could there be a pattern?
I recently worked at a site with approximately 40 racks of equipment. The site suffered a UPS malfunction which resulted in horrible spikes and phase variations being delivered to the data centre. Even IBM zSeries and pSeries systems had to have power supplies replaced, let alone Dells and HPs with with cooked system boards.
Their Suns all came back up without even an fsck. The SF4900 & 6800 didn't even go down.
What does this prove about the relative reliability and build quality of Sun systems?
Nothing.
"Failure is normal" I love you man. (Score:3, Insightful)
I work on the software side and I wish that the people who design software worked with the same thought.
Anything complicated rarely works. (Rovira's law of systemantics: The availablity of a resouce [A] is inversely proportional to [=1/] its complexity [C] to the power of [^] the urgency with which it is required [U] therefore [A=1/C^U])
Sometimes things are so complicated that total non-function is undetectable.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are looking for a partner, choose a Linux builder, there's plenty of them out there,many with the warrenty and service plans which I am sure your customers are looking for, don't be afraid to 'go local' with a white box builder. Some are really good, and they might even be able to throw some business your way.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike Sun or Dell or any other large commercial maker, a small shop won't have a compatibility testing lab where machines are subjected to hundreds of tests to verify performance. They are generally happy if the box gets to the POST screen. When compounded with the fact that Linux is rather picky about hardware (due to varying driver quality), you really don't want to buy an untested, unproven solution from some garage-based PC builder.
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of them I have built for friends and family for only the cost of parts and maybe some barter. (I don't do that too much anymore because it's cheaper and easier to order a system from Dell, plug everything together, and just migrate their files and settings.) Recently, I've built a few PVRs after someone sees mine and simply must
Well technically... (Score:5, Informative)
Back before the sparc, and after the 68020 sun3, Sun had some i386 machines that you could call wintel. (though nobody used Windows then, and I'm not sure if Dos would run). They also made the sun3x in those days, both of which didn't sell many. (In part because the sparc soon came out, and in those days the sparc killed the 80386.
Re:Well technically... (Score:3, Informative)
Poor track record (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Poor track record (Score:3, Informative)
I call bullshit. Name me one Sun hardware product that they have dropped support for before the support lifecycle was over? There isn't one. Sun's hardware support is second to none. They guarantee that a box you buy now will continue to be supported up until 5 years af
About That IBM (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Partnering with Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
As a former Sun Systems Support Engineer (SSE, basically onsite hardware/OS support), I can probably answer this for you.
First of all, you're right about the price. Sun servers, especially the UltraSparc line of servers tend to be much more pricey than your average x86 server vendor. They also tend to be relatively slow in CPU-speed, but make up for this in spades with I/O throughput and memory bandwidth. You see, Sun was one of the first server vendors to have the full 64-bit support necessary for large enterprise databases that banks, telcos and other high-end OLTP outfits require. For the first time you could run an Oracle instance on a single server with up to 106 CPUs and 512GB (that's half a terabyte) of physical memory. Of course there are only limited market segments that need this technology, but during the
Now that the reality of the IT market has been back in effect, Sun has realized it can't keep up with Intel and AMD on the CPU speed front, so Sun has decided to focus on its great operating system and Unix that can scale so well and perform on such a large number of processors, and hopefully sell some nice AMD Opteron servers to run their great, full-featured Unix OS on.
One of the benefits that Sun can offer is true enterprise, 24/7, international on-site and telephone support. If you have an investment bank that's located in 10 countries worldwide, at stock exchanges in London, NY, Singapore, etc., and you want a single 1-800 number to call for a 2-hour onsite response, 2 hour fix time repair on your Oracle database cluster, Sun is a great choice. They are truly on the level of IBM Global Services and only a couple others when it comes to knowledgeable onsite support.
Their newer AMD Opteron server offerings are starting to be much more competitively priced than HP or Dell in the x86 arena. You also have the advantage of natively running either Solaris 10 x86-64 or Linux on the same hardware, with enterprise level onsite support.
Whether Sun can turn themselves around in the market or not is one question, but they provide so many services to government agencies and fortune 500 corporations at the highest levels that their continued survival (in however small a role that might be) in the computer industry is pretty much guaranteed. When their systems are used on a lot of military installations, do you really think the US government would let them go out of business or sell off their assets to a foreign corporation?
Anyway, Sun is a solid choice and reliable server provider, with a true enterprise level support channel. I no longer work there, but I know enough people that do to know you can't really go wrong recommending them.
$3,400 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:$3,400 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$3,400 (Score:2)
Re:$3,400 (Score:2)
I remember buying a 180 Mhz Pentium Pro that rendered Softimage scenes about 5x faster than a 100Mhz INDY that cost 5x as much.
Re:$3,400 (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, something like this? (Score:3, Informative)
Published Monday 27th June 2005 14:42 GMT
Sun Microsystems has polished off its cheapest and likely most attractive Opteron-based workstation to date.
The hardware maker today introduced the world to the Ultra 20 a one-way (one socket) box that starts at $895. That price has to please a lot of Sun customers who complained when the much higher-end W2100z amd W1100z workstations arrived, costing thousands of dollars. With the Ultra 20, Sun is really delivering some of the price/perfo
Re:$3,400 (Score:2)
Sadly, you're right.
I could even see somethin around $2500 price mark, but this is a tad too high.
Re:$3,400 (Score:2, Informative)
That's not correct. The $3,400 laptop is Sparc. The $895 workstation is AMD. From TFA:
"The Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation will list at $3,400 and is equipped with Sun's Ultrasparc processor, the Solaris 10 operating system, 512 megabytes of memory, a 40 gigabyte hard drive and WiFi connectivity."
Sun laptop? Isn't that an oxymoron? (Score:5, Interesting)
Any guesses as to how much this behemoth is going to weigh?
--
Fairfax Underground: Fairfax County, VA forums and chat [fairfaxunderground.com]
Not as heavy (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, in two years will it be able to hold down as much paper from blowing away as a full-size SparcStation does?
Re:Not as heavy (Score:3, Funny)
Not the first SPARC laptop though (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the first SPARC laptop though (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobi
No prices listed, but they have SPARC laptops!
Re:Not the first SPARC laptop though (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not the first SPARC laptop though (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not the first SPARC laptop though (Score:2)
Re:Not the first SPARC laptop though (Score:3, Informative)
And then theres the SPARCstation Voyager, actually made by Sun. If you can call it a 'laptop'. It can be battery powered and has an LCD screen.
Might be a bit incomfortable on the lap though...
RDI is another company that (used to?) make them (Score:3, Informative)
Already do demanding tasks away from the desk (Score:2)
Re:Already do demanding tasks away from the desk (Score:2)
When I need my computer to do a really demanding task when I'm not at the desk, I usually start the task, go do something else, and then come back and hope it's finished!
Me too. This is what remote computing is for - you can kick off a big, data intensive task from your cellphone, fer chrissakes.
we have been using sun laptops (Score:4, Informative)
plus they run about $17,000 they aren't cheap. i don't know where this article is coming from at all.
Re:we have been using sun laptops (Score:5, Informative)
It's coming from Sun announcing [sun.com] the Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation [sun.com], although the picture on that page suggests that perhaps Sun are just re-branding Tadpole and Naturetech SPARC laptops. (The announcement mainly talks about a new x86 workstation, but it also mentions the SPARC laptops.)
The article didn't say "first SPARC laptop", it said "Sun announces its first laptop", i.e. the first one that Sun is selling as a Sun, rather than somebody else selling it as a SPARC-compatible.
The Sun announcement clearly says "Entry-level pricing for the Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation begins at $3,400 (USD)." Perhaps, as they've "been out for a long time", your workplace bought SPARC workstations when they were a lot more expensive.
Re:we have been using sun laptops (Score:2)
but i am not sure, i have never used them, i just see them and see how muhc they cost
Hello, welcome to yesterday (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hello, welcome to yesterday (Score:4, Informative)
There have been Sparc laptops for a long time. They were never build by Sun, though. And they were also hideously expensive, i.e. in the $20,000 range. This is Sun's first foray into this highly dubious market segment.
Re:Hello, welcome to yesterday (Score:2)
Oh well, it's too little, too late in either case.
Re:Hello, welcome to yesterday (Score:2)
By dubious I assume you mean SPARC laptops, because laptops as a whole are a huge business, accounting for 51% of pc sales by revenue last year and rising.
Re:Hello, welcome to yesterday (Score:3, Funny)
I've got a Dell PowerEdge 360 that runs rings around the Sun Blade 1000 next to it, except for one problem - the PCB simulation software that is written for both Solaris and Linux has a glaring bug in the Linux version that causes it to crash after displaying just a few waveforms of transmission line simulations, makin
Except these aren't built by Sun, either (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra3/ [sun.com]
Todayear. (Score:4, Informative)
The info page shows a Tadpole [tadpolecomputer.com] and a Naturetech [naturetechws.com] notebook.
So these still seem to be SPARC notebooks.
Tadpole makes a Dual CPU SPARC [tadpolecomputer.com] notebook, BTW
Re:Hello, welcome to yesterday (Score:3, Informative)
I believe the closest thing sun came to a laptop before now was the voyager luggable.
oh man .. (Score:3, Interesting)
well, not actually, just this. that Sun would do it. and then SGI would do it.
i tell you, it'd make up for the bizaare experience that can only be described as the last 5 years of 'Apple make the only Unix laptop worth a damn' reality bubble distortion field
please, SGI, make us a laptop, put your Linux on it, and make it rock like it should.
*sniff..
Way too much unfair bad publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
Now replace all references to Sun in the parent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Way too much unfair bad publicity (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Way too much unfair bad publicity (Score:2)
Didn't Tadpole Make One Years Ago? (Score:2)
Re:Didn't Tadpole Make One Years Ago? (Score:2)
Was it called the Sparcbook?
Re:Didn't Tadpole Make One Years Ago? (Score:2)
better idea (Score:2)
Re:better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Why didn't *BSD just add support for common x86 laptop chipsets to Linux...oh, wait, they let us do it for them. for free.
etc.
Oh, grow up! Sun opens solaris, and all you can do is gripe that they expect someone else to flesh out the hardware support. If everyone had your attitude, Linus would probably be just another anonymous code monkey and Linux wouldn't even be a histori
The problem is ... (Score:4, Funny)
I heard it was just a Sun Blade 2500, but it now comes with this really big backpack.
Specifications (Score:5, Informative)
UltraSPARC IIi (550 MHz or 650 MHz)
UltraSPARC IIIi (1.28 GHz)
Up to:
2 GB SDRAM
Either
80-GB IDE HD
73-GB UltraSCSI HD
802.11
Solaris 10
JDE
Re:Specifications (Score:2)
Isn't that a bit slow by today's standards????
Re:Specifications (Score:2)
Gosh, those specs are pretty similar to... (Score:2)
Processor? (Score:3, Interesting)
That would give some of us soon to be ex apple fans somewhere to go, other then just a ix86.
We're Cutting Prices On All Items... (Score:5, Funny)
Mad Dog McNealy says "Linux is Red Hat, Red Hat is evil, but Microsoft is A-okay!"
This sale is brought to you by Sun Computers, maker of Java, slower than Espresso, and guaranteed to run badly on any platform!
and Steve Ballmer will be their new spokesman (Score:2, Funny)
Re:We're Cutting Prices On All Items... (Score:3, Funny)
Pardon the interruption, but the marketers making the previous offer have been sacked.
"More LOW LOW prices, now from SunSOFT...
We apologize, but the people responsible for sacking the previous marketers, have been sacked.
"..and you can ONLY get this deal from the brand-new Sun... er... Microsystems!
Once again we apologize for the interruption. The people responsible for sacking the people who were sacking the marketing droids, have been sacked.
I'm salivating over their Ultra 20 workstation (Score:2)
Re:I'm salivating over their Ultra 20 workstation (Score:4, Informative)
Sun Still sells computers? (Score:2)
Why buy sun hardware these days when better unix-based OSs and better price-performance are available everywhere else?
Re:Sun Still sells computers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sun x86 stuff has a pretty good price/performance ratio, and Solaris is a decent OS, especially compared to Linux with the flaky 2.6.x kernel (why the fuck isn't there a 2.7.x for unstable stuff?), poor backwards-compatibility and compatiblity between distros. What are you comparing it to exactly?
What about Voyager? not a laptop exactly, but... (Score:3, Informative)
sun laptops (Score:2)
RDI and Tadpole both made Sparc notebooks, as well as a few others. Milspec mostly.
IBM had a PPC RS/6000 notebook... It limited in version of AIX it will run though.
The SGI luggables in Twister were made by banned from the ranch or another group. They are fake, just Indy presenter displays. Given the sizes of the boxes, it would have been trivial to pack an Indy in a case that size. RDI or someone I believe offered portab
Don't forget the New Ultra 20 (Score:5, Informative)
Published Monday 27th June 2005 14:42 GMT
Sun Microsystems has polished off its cheapest and likely most attractive Opteron-based workstation to date.
The hardware maker today introduced the world to the Ultra 20 a one-way (one socket) box that starts at $895. That price has to please a lot of Sun customers who complained when the much higher-end W2100z amd W1100z workstations arrived, costing thousands of dollars. With the Ultra 20, Sun is really delivering some of the price/performance benefits associated with x86 chips to the developer crowd.
Sun has long been a major player in the workstation market, pumping out Solaris on SPARC boxes for engineers, developers and designers. The rise, however, of Intel Xeon's processor ate into a huge chunk of Sun's workstation share. Sun's line of Opteron-based systems is its response to this loss, and the Ultra 20 is the first box in this line aimed square at developers.
Sun unveiled the system at its Java One conference which starts today in San Francisco.
"This system is meant to reach a much broader audience," said John Fowler, Sun's vice president in charge of the x86 systems. "Java One is the world's biggest developer conference, so it made sense to show it off there."
While you can buy the Ultra 20 flat out just like any another bit of hardware, Sun also has a much weirder pricing option. Customers can pay $30 per month over three years ($1,080) and get the system, Solaris 10, Java Studio Enterprise 7, Java Studio Creator and support. This package full of Java tools is meant for the developer crowd.
Initially, the Ultra 20 will ship with a single-core version - 1.8GHz to 2.6GHz - of AMD's Opteron. As El Reg reported last week, AMD will make a dual-core version of this 100 Series chip available in the third quarter. (AMD confirmed the move to customers in a note issued Friday.)
The Ultra 20 also ships with up to 4GB of memory, up to 2 SATA drives (80GB or 250GB), six USB 2.0 ports and two IEEE 1394a ports. The box will run Solaris x86, Red Hat and SuSE Linux 32-bit and 64-bit and Windows XP Pro 32-bit and 64-bit.
Sun continues to see a sharp rise in it Opteron system sales. The company is currently battling with HP for the top spot among all Opteron server sellers.
Sun has enjoyed particular success in Germany where it holds 41 per cent of the Opteron server market versus 23 per cent for HP, according to the first quarter figures from Gartner.
You can see the Ultra 20 in all its glory available here.
Along with the Ultra 20, Sun also pointed to the new Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation, which runs on its UltraSPARC chip and starts at $3,400. This system looks like a rebranded version of a Tadpole laptop. ®
http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra20/re
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/27/sun_ultra
Link to the actual product site (Score:5, Informative)
These are just rebranded Tadpole and Naturetech! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:These are just rebranded Tadpole and Naturetech (Score:3, Informative)
Opteron lappie would be news. (Score:2)
Make your time (Score:2)
Remember when Apple's stock was at rock bottom, pre-Steve, and Sun made a lowball offer to buy them out (which they thankfully refused)?
It'd be really funny and ironic if Apple bought out Sun now. Yeah, sure it proba
Yow! News Flash! Stop the Presses! (Score:4, Funny)
Availlable in units of 75 sheets each, the beautiful yellow nanotech material is easy to hold in the user's hand or attached to a conventional clipboard. It requires no external power, relying exclusively on passive power derived from the user's physical manipulation of the material. The stylus is available in models that apply black, red, blue, or green pigment to the nanotech sheets. They also rely entirely on the user's physical manipulation for power, and only require periodic changing of toner cartridges that are small tubular components only a few millimeters in diameter. Sun has thus eliminated the cost and logistics required to distribute electrical power, UPS facilities, and expensive rechargeable batteries to users. Data storage is for all intents and purposes permanent, and is impervious to even multi-Tesla magnetic fields and large amounts of electromagnetic radiation across a wide spectrum. Styli that contain precisely machined lengths of purified graphite-based toner will soon be available and will add erasable read/write capability.
The nanosheets will be available in units of 10 pads of 75 sheets each for $2500 list price, and non-erasable styli are available in packages of 25 for $1295. The advanced machined graphite styli were not available at press time.
Damn that thing is sexy (Score:2)
playing catch-up with SGI (Score:3, Funny)
If you look closely at the garbage movie, Twister [imdb.com], there are a couple scenes where the meteorologists are out in the field with their stupid school bus looking at satellite data on a laptop. I'm guessing because they got a deal on CGI work, Silicon Graphics wanted every computer in the movie to be one of theirs. So on this laptop, they had a piece of masking tape on the bottom of the screen with the letters handwritten- 'SGI'.
More ridiculous than that, though, was when the hailstorm came. This ragtag group of meteorologists, working on a shoestring budget, grabbed their stuff and ran for cover. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character uses the 'SGI laptop' as a shield from the hail holding it over his head as he ran towards the school bus.
Why only 40 gigs? (Score:3, Insightful)
These whacky kids today... (Score:4, Informative)
First ever!!!?? Sheesh.
Sun aren't making laptops ... (Score:3, Informative)
Sun proves once again that they're CLUELESS!! (Score:4, Interesting)
STARTING at $3,400 for a Sun-branded laptop running at 1.28 GHz.
Compare that to less than $2,000 for a brand name laptop (pick one) w/ Pentium M 1.8-2.0 GHz, DVD writer, 1 GB RAM, and so forth - and it's very likely that Linux will run just fine on it, perhaps with some drivers.
Oh, look! I can get a screaming fast 3 GHz Pentium IV system w/ 1 GB RAM, 500 GB drive space, 19" LCD panel, dual-layer DVD writer, Gb Ethernet, etc. starting at ~$1,900 from brand name A. Again, it's very likely that Linux + some drivers will work with this system.
Compare that to a Sun Blade 150 at 650 MHz, 512 MB of RAM, 80 GB drive, 100 Mb Ethernet, etc that STARTS at a measly $3,400!
I really wish that Sun would realize that the Sun brand name is no longer sufficient to jack up the prices on their hardware. I honestly don't see this laptop selling any more than it normally would if Sun didn't bring it to the forefront, since us Sun geeks knew about Tadpole for years now.
Before you think I'm trolling, I'm actually a Sun bigot. I have three Sun workstations at home (yes, home) and I've already contacted my Sun sales rep regarding purchasing the new Ultra 20 [sun.com], (which is actually VERY reasonably priced, particularly for Sun) as a personal workstation for me at home (yes, home). But the simple fact of the matter is that for years I have watched major, international, engineering corporations trade in their Sun workstations for Dell workstations simply because of the price per performance. Sun's continually high prices due to the Sun name has been a pet peeve of mine for over six years.
When a Sun workstation offers 1/2 to 2/3 the speed at twice the price, the purchasing decision is a no-brainer. This laptop sadly continues that trend. The dot-com bubble is dead. Most companies take a much harder look at the bottom line than before. I don't see how this laptop will sell any more than before, particularly since us Sun geeks have known about Tadpole laptops for many years.
Re:The first? what about the Tadpole?? (Score:2)
Looks that way. The picture on Sun's webpage [sun.com] has 2 laptops, one with a Tadpole logo, and another with a Naturetech logo on the displays.
Re:Sun's Lsat Chance (Score:3, Interesting)
It's called retro or "old school". Personally, I like the way they look: the exact opposite of the ultra-slick yuppie Apples. Sun boxes *look* like they mean business, even if some of them are purple.
Re:Sun's Lsat Chance (Score:5, Funny)
Me neither. They have been turning up regularly for years.
Re:sun? bet it will be... (Score:2)