McNealy would not speculate on the financial impact of the deal when asked. He did say that Sun likely would not see fiscal benefit from the Sun/Fujitsu joint product distribution before 2005. So far, in fact, Sun's quarterly results have yet to reflect any of its so-called disruptive innovation efforts.
The news also puts to rest speculation about the future of Sun's UltraSPARC chip line after Sun decided to kill its UltraSPARC V and Gemini next-generation UltraSPARC products in April.
"APL replaces UltraSPARC V development," Andy Ingram, vice president, scalable systems group, said in response to a CRN question during a meeting at Sun's Menlo Park, Calif., campus Tuesday. In the future, Sun will focus on its new throughput computing microprocessor lines, code-named Niagra and Rock, Ingram said. Throughput computing, also called chip multithreading, means the processor cores of the chip are capable of running more than one series of application instructions, called threads, simultaneously.
Niagara, to be used in network handling and Web tier servers, is based in part on technology obtained from Afara Web Systems, which Sun acquired more than a year ago. Slated to follow Niagara, Rock is aimed at midrange and high-end servers and will make use of Afara technology and Sun designs such as the MAJC graphic processor.
By cutting UltraSPARC development at Sun, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based vendor will save on R&D costs in its microprocessor division, recently renamed the Throughput Systems Unit. Wall Street has been pressuring Sun to cut operating expenses over the past several years, though McNealy has steadfastly insisted R&D is an integral part of Sun's DNA. He reiterated that point Tuesday, and said the Fujitsu deal will allow Sun to shift R&D funds that previously were spent on UltraSPARC to other areas of the business, including software, storage and services.
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