Sun Spawns Galaxy

Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today unveiled the first servers in its new line of Galaxy” machines, built around the latest dual-core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). Sun has also launched a low-cost, stripped-down, version of its enterprise servers targeted at the lucrative high-performance computing space.

A number of organizations, particularly in areas such as education and the government sector, are eschewing expensive supercomputers in favor of clusters built of standard, low-cost, servers (see Sandia Blasts Off Blade Cluster and Luebeck Looks to Clusters).

With the launch of its new one-rack-unit-high Sun Fire X2100 server today, Sun is looking to tap into this demand and claw market share from rival vendors like Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL). (See Statoil Builds Dell Cluster.)

Clearly, Sun is wielding price as a cudgel in an attempt to win this battle. The X2100, which has an entry level price of $745, significantly undercuts Sun’s existing offering in this part of the market, the Sun Fire V20z, which starts at $2,195.

Dell was unavailable for comment on the announcement.