Elizabeth Montalbano from CRN recently sat down to speak with Sun CEO Scott McNealy about the company's plans for expansion in the face of a tough environment and about how it can make the best use of its partners. McNealy commented on the increased business Sun is sending to partners and how both parties can work to make the best of the situation.

McNealy first fielded a question about the message Sun is sending to its partners, stating that Sun has a stronger commitment than ever to the partner model. He predicted that Sun would push for overall growth through the partner model, "not through hiring 4,000 to 5,000 employees in the field per quarter like we were doing at the peak of the bubble."

More specifically, McNealy described how Sun plans to send business to big service providers and OEMs, but also push a higher percentage of its business to the channel.

McNealy also explained how Sun's partner in Dallas, ACS, is using a "right and interesting model," by which Sun fills the data-center with its own equipment. ACS staffs the data center and Sun is able to sell "Sun Power Units" in the manner of a utility computing model.

As McNealy explains the Sun Power Units, "It's a unit of measure of compute of a [system]. Now [for] different customers, we might price vector power units different than terabyte power units versus Mps power units or SAP power units. But right now we just came up with a fairly simple unit of measure for access to a Web Services infrastructure. The customer likes it because they get a true utility model. They don't have to assemble anything, they don't have to own or operate anything. They get a service level agreement, and they get it at a true utility model."

Sun still plans to sell hardware by the piece, despite its new emphasis on subscription price models and wholesale deals. McNealy expects the new models will start catching on soon, though he admits, "It's a very, very different model."

For the complete interview, see:

http://www.crn.com/components/Nl/direct/article.asp?ArticleID=49515 [...read more...]

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