Making up for lost time, the local subsidiary of computer maker Sun Microsystems has appointed a local IT distributor to push its newly launched servers and workstations running on AMD Opteron processors.
Calling its distributorship agreement with Wordtext Systems Inc. (WSI) as a partnership, Sun Microsystems Philippines (SunPhil) said the deal represents a bold attempt for both firms to snare a larger part of local market in the x64 platform.
The partnership agreement was formally signed by WSI and SunPhil during the opening ceremonies of Comddap Expo 2005 held at The Fort Global City in Taguig last October 6.
It took some time for Sun to bring its Opteron-based systems in the Philippines although the product was launched in 2003. SunPhil President Cynthia R. Mamon said it also took them a while before they were able to pick a distributor partner.
Juan Chua, president of WSI, admitted that it will require a lot effort to overhaul the headstart of other technology vendors that have earlier shipped similar systems based on the x64 platform.
But he added that the products that Sun have introduced can pose a serious challenge to the current market leaders such as HP, Dell, and IBM. "Our target is to capture five percent of the local market in the x64 platform in the next six months," Chua said.
Gan Boon San, managing director for Sun Microsystems Asia South, said it used to be that Sun was not even in the shortlist of vendors given a second look in the x64 platform. "We were lowly rated in the past, but recently we have grown tremendously."
For her part, Mamon said Sun’s belated entry in the x64 platform would give the market the flexibility to choose the systems that would deliver optimum performance at the least cost.
SunPhil Country Sales Director Dan Viray said they are looking at bundling some specific solutions with the new models from the Sun Fire x64 series of servers that was developed by Sun co-founder and chief architect Andy Bechtolsheim.
Executives claimed the Sun Fire x64 servers have one-and-a-half times performance, but consume only one-third the power, and are one-quarter the size of current servers. The Sun Fire x64 line is composed of Sun Fire X2100, X4100, X4200, V40z, and V20z.
Sun also launched workstations to complement the Opteron servers. They include Sun Ultra 20, Java Workstation W2100z, and W1100z. (Melvin G. Calimag)
