InformationWeek

January 12, 1998

Sun's Price Beaters

Low-end systems mark effort to slow shift to Windows NT

un Microsystems will defend its workstation leadership this week by unveiling inexpensive new systems that it hopes will stanch the flow of users migrating to Windows NT. Sun also plans new support for Windows applications, and high-end systems with improved graphics.

Sun's low-end models are the Darwin Ultra 5 and Darwin Ultra 10, priced at less than $5,000 and $10,000, respectively. The machines use 270-MHz and 300-MHz versions of a new highly integrated chip, the UltraSparc IIi.

Analysts say the new systems represent the right strategy for Sun. Though the vendor has 40% of the $11 billion workstation market, NT systems from PC vendors have been rapidly eating into the low end of the market.

Sun, traditionally a provider of solid midrange systems, also will step up its efforts in high-end mechanical CAD, electronic design automation, imaging, and animation markets with its new Ultra 60 system. That system, priced less than $20,000, will include up to two 300-MHz UltraSparc II processors and the option of a new, faster graphics technology called Elite3D.

Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston has tested systems using the graphics technology in brain-imaging research. "We're seeing a significant improvement in performance over Creator3D," Sun's older graphics technology, says the hospital's Dr. Ron Kikinis. "What Sun now offers is very competitive."

Sun is also working to ensure that its workstations will support Windows. It has licensed Insignia Software's Soft Windows 95, which lets users run Windows applications on Sun systems, and plans to offer a PC Card this summer as a way to run Windows applications alongside Unix.

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