Sun Microsystems' decision to bundle varioushigher-level components with its Solaris operating system is to some extenta reaction to moves that its chief competitors have already made.
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Gartner has been predicting since last year that the evolution ofapplication server technology into areas like e-commerce and portals willcause infrastructure software companies to change the packaging of theirproducts. As companies vie for a bigger piece of the market for increasingly important e-business systems, they are giving away theapplication server software, which makes it possible to control accounts andpossibly gain in the market.
Sun has announced it will initially bundle the Sun Open Network Environment with Solaris, and by theend of 2003, the company will build its application server for e-business and Webserver software into Solaris. In this respect, it seems to be reacting to the likes of Hewlett-Packard, which already bundles its applicationserver with its HP-UX operating system. This allows it to then promote otherproducts such as HP-AS Resilient Edition 8.0, HP Total-e-Transactions, HP-ISand HP Core Services Framework.
Similarly, IBM bundles WebSphere with special versions of the AS/400operating system, and Microsoft bundles its Internet Information Server withserver versions of Windows NT.
Looking at the application server market through 2003, Gartner believes thatthe advantage in value in basic application servers will continue todecrease as IBM, Sun and HP bundle their basic applications servertechnology with their hardware.
Sun's latest announcement is clearly a market position move to gain theattention of corporate developers and protect its server business. Whilesuch a marketing tactic doesn't give away either the higher-end platformapplication server software or runtime licenses, it does give server makers like Sun, which have application server technology, an advantageover other companies that just sell the software, such as BEA Systems. BEAsells most of its software for the Solaris operating system.
(For a related commentary, on worldwide server market share figures, see gartner.com.)
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