Five Reasons to Believe In Sun Again

After spending recent years opening up its software and embracing x86 hardware, Sun executives say the company is back. The VAR Guy remains skeptical, but here are five reasons why the company could attract stronger interest from partners and customers.

5. Betting on Big Blue: Sun’s partnership with IBM could give Solaris some momentum on x86 servers, and potentially pressures Hewlett-Packard.

4. Big Sales Target: Sun hopes to build a $7 billion channel business by 2010, according to Cheryl Cook, VP of US Sales at Sun. Of course, Sun will need to stop upsetting partners in order to build a loyal, profitable following in the channel.

3. Money Matters: Sun has launched a Partner Growth Fund, which allows partners to more easily get their hands on Sun demo equipment. Smart move. If partners believe in Sun’s technology, customers will too.

2. Three’s A Charm: Sun in July reported its third consecutive quarter of profits, earning $329 millionon revenue of $3.84 billion. Not too shabby.

1. Fast-moving Leadership: No offense to former CEO Scott McNealy, but he hesitated to make the job cuts and business moves necessary to transform Sun. Current CEO Jonathan Schwartz has cut 4,000 jobs since mid-2006, with more targeted trims coming this year. Schwartz has also successfully embraced the open source movement, forging closer relationships with such companies as SugarCRM.

The bottom line: Sun is back from the brink. But The VAR Guy doesn’t believe they’re a growth company … at least not yet. Too many customers (and partners) still think of Sun as a maker of big, expensive SPARC/Solaris boxes. Schwartz is striving to change this perception, but it will take several years to happen.