Sun's Bold New Ad Campaign

Celeritas writes "Sun is making some noise over their latest x64server entries by doing a fly by over Dell's HQ yesterday. A few pictures were snapped to capture the event. Sun has continued the offensive by running some interesting ads as well as designing some that were rejected due to the controversial content or as Sun calls them 'bold ad concepts'"

I am a bit disappointed

[HairyCanary]

From the text of that ad, you'd think they had -just- now started selling AMD64 servers. I have several Sun AMD64 servers sitting in my server room, and have for quite a while now. Granted, they're just reference boxes -- but they do say Sun on them.

desperation?

[weighn]

the old "bold ad campaign" eh?

I know jack about marketing, but this stinks of desperation.

Re:Cute, but is it really necessary?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

But don't most server admins know the benefits, and won't they have already done the research on what they want to buy?

You think server admins usually get to choose what to buy?

I don't think so.

It looks to me the ads are probably targeted at getting the mindshare of PHB types.

Link to the Quark ads

[ReformedExCon]

http://quarkvsindesign.com/news/archives/2005/03/q uarks-postcards-from-the-edge/ [quarkvsindesign.com]

It's payback for Dell flying over San Jose

[postbigbang]

And they're not the first ones to try and embarrass Sun on Sun's turf. Galaxy-Class servers. Gene Roddenberry is rolling in his grave. Folks, this is a 1U, 2-64 CPU machine. Nice. But just wait a short while and multi-cores will blow this stuff away-- before the end of the year you can get four (then more) 64-bit cores in a 1U, and stuff it with enough RAM to make a real difference. Please watch the Tom and Dick Smothers-- oops I mean Scott and Jonathon-- Show for more details. And it's Schwartz playing bass.

No kidding

[dsginter]

The yutzes over at Sun's marketing team don't even know what their talking about. What's an "x64" server? Do they mean "64-bit" or have they shaved x86 down to size?

Re:Wow. The clue meter is reading zero.

[WidescreenFreak]

Why? I think that's a really brilliant move! That means that Sun systems are the only systems out there that are certified to run Linux, Windows, and Solaris x86. That's has the potential to be an awesome marketing tool that no other server manufacturer can make.

As I mentioned in a different Slashdot story, one of the local Windows admins got a loaner Sun system with Windows installed on it and he was very impressed with its speed and stability. That can open a whole, new market base for Sun. And even if those servers don't run Solaris now, who's to say that they won't in the future as current systems are put into end-of-life or replaced and therefore can serve other functions? Now that we've moved the data to a bigger server, what should we do with this one? Let's put that Solaris on it and see what we can do with it. Hey, it's a very distinct possibility.

Personally, I think that it's about time that McNealy swallowed a bit of that arrogant pride of his. It's been a long time coming. As a Sun admin for over 10 years I'm very excited about this new direction that Sun has been taking. Let's hope it's not too little, too late.

Re:First thought

[anagama]

I know that Sun antagonizes the linux world to some extent but even so, I respect the company. It has given me OpenOffice -- a suite I use almost daily (I don't work on weekends). Several years ago I bought a copy of StarOffice to show my appreciation -- but I've been using OpenOffice and all the upgrades since for a sum total of the 60-70 bucks I voluntarily spent on Star Office (can't recall the exact price anymore). In all honesty, I owe Sun a good amount of appreciation, and I hope they do kick some Dell butt.

Plus, they have some really nice looking hardware [sun.com]. I'm seriously considering replacing my home built, "sides taken off because it gets too hot and crashes during gzipping of backups" monstrosity I have sitting here.

The facts are simple

[cpu_fusion]

Sun has a winning hand here. It is that simple.

The AMD64 platform is a better platform than Intel's at the moment, in every way. And on top of that, Sun has a hell of a lot more experience in building bulletproof hardware. When you factor in Solaris & a lower price tag ... you can see why Sun has no problem mentioning Dell in the ads.

You can spin this whatever way you want, but I'm looking forward to seeing Sun trash the company that brought us the "Dell dude". Dell can go back to selling their overpriced PCs at Christmas, and the people who actually run the important servers in the world, doing billion dollar transactions, have a clear path to keep the Windows/Dell bozos out of the server room in the basement of the bank.

Re:Looks like some great ads

[Lost+Found]

Funny... as crappy as Microsoft's shit is, they could be called not only a leader but a monopoly. Yet, they seem to have a lot of hot air to let out about Linux...

Re:Looks like some great ads

[lawpoop]

A minor point -- do competitors mention the #1 so that they are equated with them (i.e. seen as the same as them) or so that they are seen as a valid competitor, that is, in the same class as the #1?

Re:Looks like some great ads

[willpall]

I've always taken the opposite line of reasoning: That the runners-up avoid mentioning the name of the market-leader (saying, "the leading brand" or "...than other leading brands") so as not to imprint the consumer with their competitor's brand.

An exception that proves my point is the Honda Accord. I personally equate that brand with positive feelings. Why? Because every other car commercial touts how much roomier/faster/more efficient/cheaper/safer/prettier their model is than the Accord. So I get the feeling that the Accord is a de facto benchmark, seeing as how every carmaker compares themselves to Honda (or often, the Toyota Camry)

You took a Marketing class, I haven't. Maybe they cover what I'm talking about in Marketing 201? :-)

Let me know.

Re:Looks like some great ads

[DoctorBit]

A few months ago, I wanted to bid on a used Sun monitor on Ebay, but decided not to after giving up in frustration trying to learn the monitor's specifications from the Sun website, and then also from email correspondence with Sun tech support representatives. Basically, Sun doesn't provide any information about their old products except to people who are paying expensive support contracts.

I wound up buying a Dell P1110 monitor instead and no one bid on the (probably superior, but I'm not sure) Sun monitor. I think that Sun's lack of support for their old products gives Sun's products poor resale value, so I'm avoiding buying any new products from Sun.

Power efficiency is the point

[JoeBuck]

Servers aren't for home purchasers (except maybe for us geeks). Power is critical to any institution that wants to put a lot of servers in the same room; power consumption is the critical limitation for how much CPU power you can get in one room. The limit is not how much current you can get into the room, but whether you can have enough AC to keep everything from frying. A server farm with several hundred dual-core processors puts out a lot of heat.

The competition has given Sun an opening, by sticking with Intel even in an area where AMD has better technology (though Intel will probably catch up in a year or two). Ordinarily I'd laugh at Sun for saying "we're number 6". But if they can partner with AMD well, and AMD can deliver in volume, Sun may survive, they might even do well.

But the people I know are only going to be interested in buying those boxes if they run Linux. To be specific, Red Hat Enterprise, since that's pretty much the standard for electronic design automation these days at least in the US. That's why Sun is suddenly making nice to Red Hat.

Re:Reminds me of QuarkExpress

[Elminst]

anyone have links to the vid of this?

Re:Looks like some great ads

[dcocos]

I may be going out on a limb here. But they don't advertise it, they only combat it via PR, there hasn't been an MS commercial on TV that says "We are better than Linux because..." all of the anti-Linux stuff hasn't been in ads but in press releases and seminars.

Re:Idiots

[minion]

Perhaps Sun could learn to promote their products on their own merits, rather than insulting a competitor.
 
I think those ads speak very well of Sun's merits.
A) Sun's servers use less power
B)Sun's servers put off less heat
C)Sun's servers are faster than Dell's.
 
Really, one thing to consider here: Sun makes an OS, makes CPUs, makes chipsets.. And we're not talking just the fabrication. They have engineers designing this stuff... What has Dell ever developed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They've developed nothing, except for a business model that takes other people's desgins and hard work, and mass produces them so each unit can make a $5 profit, and hope that they'll sell a million units.
 
They are the leech of the industry, and with our patronage, future R&D is in grave trouble, because they give nothing back to the community.

SUN is back.

[Dangero]

I used to work at SUN and I was personally at the meetings when they were announcing and planning their takeover of the x86 server market. They have been strategically planning and designing for this for more than two years now. The thing that SUN was finding as they made their designs and tested them is that they were finding flaws in the Intel/AMD ref designs, and when they went and told them, those companies were saying, "Wow, nobody ever noticed that before." SUN knows how to make a stable server, and their designs are WORLD CLASS. Bottom line. Looks like SUN is poised to become a great name in computing again.

Special offer from Sun

[hritcu]

http://www.sun.com/emrkt/x64tradeup/index.html [sun.com]

Trade in any qualified Dell server and get a 20% trade-up allowance off the list price on eligible new Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers with 3-year support services. That's a potential savings of up to $1,900 on new entry level Sun servers that have 1.5 times the performance of Xeon-based Dell servers.* Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers also offer up to 56% savings in power and cooling costs per year over comparable Dell servers.

Re:I have a theory about "advertising"

[LizardKing]

my theory is: ... Good products don't need much if any advertising.

That was the attitude over at Digital. Their head honcho believed that they would dominate by just having the best products, and that marketing was therefore a waste of time. Instead they got bought out by some commodity PC outfit called Compaq.

Re:I am a bit disappointed

[laffer1]

I've looked at the servers, and they are interesting but certainly not complete.

1. As another pointed out no hard drive.
2. No operating system
3. optical drive and decent warrenty are addons.

I priced a server out and figure it would be about 1500 dollars once a decent hard drive, warrenty and optical drive are selected. I'm assuming that I don't buy a 150 dollar sun hard drive and instead go to newegg. I also assumed that I upgraded the ram.

The servers look better than dell's lower lines and i'm very interested, but its not an 800 dollar server by any means.

Its odd that sun made the amd64 line both their lowend and midrange products. The v100 has been 1000 dollars for quite some time with a 550mhz sparc and a hard drive with solaris and sun one webserver on it. I'm even more confused which processor architecture they are going to use in 3 years. It seems to go from sparc to amd64 and back to sparc. Glad apple said "we're switching" flat out.

Finally, I'd like to explain the optical drive statement above. 1u servers are also purchased by small businesses and individuals for colocation purposes. Many of us don't have netboot/tftp handy to install operating systems and would need to either buy a dvd drive with the system, hope a sun can boot off an external, pop the drive in another computer for installation, or try to open the case and temporarily hook up a cdrom. Its a hassle. Its good in larger environments not to pay extra from the dvd drive as it would not be needed.