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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (44417)	8/9/2001 11:01:21 PM
From: techtonicbull	Respond to of 64865

SUN AND HITACHI HOOK UP ON STORAGE Sun Microsystems (SUNW, $16.76, down 0.49) and Hitachi confirmed long-standing rumors that the two companies would team up to sell each other 's storage hardware and software. For Sun, the marketing and distribution deal is aimed at rounding out its storage product line to better compete with EMC (EMC, $17.70, down 0.60) and IBM (IBM, $104, unch.). The key to the deal for Sun is that the company will now resell Hitachi's high-end storage unit under the StorEdge 9900 brand. Until now, Sun has been able to provide its customers only with storage products for its mid-range servers. TODD'S TAKE: EMC says that this deal offers nothing new to data storage customers. Although that might be true in a strict sense of the word, EMC nonetheless should be concerned here. So far EMC has been the main beneficiary of the fact that Sun could not supply storage products to companies running its high-end servers. That's about to change. Sun has chosen a great partner to fill its product line in Hitachi. This year Hitachi has shown particularly strong growth in the sale of its data storage products. By teaming up with Hitachi, Sun is telling its customers that it can now deliver the total package: servers, software and storage. Up until this point, the firm's inability to offer complete solutions has often sent its server users directly to EMC. In fact, Sun claims that 45% of EMC's business comes from attaching storage products to Sun servers! Sun is aiming to take some of that business back -- and we think it will. On another competitive front, Sun's "total package" solution puts it more directly in competition with IBM, a company that has its own line of storage products to go along with its servers and software. We've written previously that the data storage market offers one of the best growth opportunities in the technology world. Demand for data storage is not going to slow down, even in the face of a sluggish economy. Instead, we think it will continue to explode. There is plenty of room for all three of these companies to do well in this market, but that's not to say they won't fight tooth and nail to capture market share. They will. The partnership with Hitachi is an aggressive move that makes perfect sense. When companies come to Sun for servers, Sun has them in the showroom, so to speak. Now Sun can now offer all its servers "fully-loaded" with all the storage and software bells and whistles. This is a great deal that will strengthen Sun's position in a high-growth area. We expect it to produce impressive returns. www.BullMarket.com ===================================== =====================================