Sun drives down acquisition costs

In a move that enables companies to lower their IT spend while sufficiently preparing for growth, Sun Microsystems has announced the immediate availability of Capacity on Demand 2.0 (COD 2.0), a computing option that significantly counters acquisition costs.

Organisations can now purchase Sun Fire Midframe and high-end systems configured to scale instantly, simply and in small increments - one processor at a time - when user demand increases.

COD 2.0 enables companies to install processor and memory resources on their Sun Fire systems at the time of purchase and only pay for those resources once they are used.

Comments Vernon Turner, group vice-president, global enterprise server solutions at IDC: "With ever-tightening IT budgets, vendors need to remove as many barriers to entry as possible.

"By offering customers lower up-front costs and the ability to scale with ease, Sun is delivering one of strongest an most compelling capacity on demand capabilities in the industry."

Significantly, unlike many other vendors who charge a premium for similar capabilities, Sun enables customers to take advantage of this benefit at no extra charge.

"With COD 2.0 we're bringing an enhanced version of our popular enterprise computing feature (formerly available on the Sun Enterprise 1000 server) to the UltraSPARC III-powered Sun Fire series," says Michael Law, sales manager at Sun Microsystems SA.

"Everybody needs to be prepared for growth. With COD 2.0, financial and educational institutions, for example, can be ready to handle an influx of new customers or back-to-school challenges with ease and without unexpected expenditure."