New look sun emerges

Having spent the first half of the year bedding down its acquisition of Storagetek, Sun Microsystems is now in full selling mode. Sun has four clear practices - systems, storage, software and services – representing the company’s full portfolio. Former Storagetek country manager David Tse heads up the Storage Group practice in New Zealand. Tse estimates around 65% of Sun’s business is through partners and says there is no place in the market where partners can’t play. “Sun’s service expertise is in support and its first preference is for the channel to front it. Sun is very defined where it sits in the market and doesn’t move into the local SI area – unlike some traditional foes,” he says. If anything, says Tse, the channel has welcomed Sun’s increased capability.“It’s great to have such a huge portfolio. Sun has gained significant mindshare and that’s beginning to have an impact. There’s a lot more open systems stuff coming out that the channel is able to take into different areas,” he says.  Sun currently has two local distributors; Datastor represents Storagetek products and Express Data is Sun’s new channel development partner.