MENLO PARK, Calif. — Similar to the way a doctor tells a patient to stop
smoking, Sun Microsystems is prescribing an ounce of
prevention with a financial incentive for its data center customers.
On Tuesday, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based network computer maker launched
a new subscription-based network services delivery model, called Sun
Preventive Services. The company said the idea is to create a baseline
diagnostic and then work with customers to help them improve security and
reliability.
“We would walk in with a customer and say ‘well, I see that you have this
server or that system with security holes in it. Let’s see what we can do to
fix that,'” Sun CEO Scott McNealy said during a press conference here. The
new offering is part of some 30 new hardware and software products Sun is
launching as part of its regularly scheduled quarterly update.
After Sun analyzes the network, it said it produces what it calls a set
of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which are warnings that
a system could fail. Sun said it then establishes specific, measurable
performance goals and offers some 100 new action plans to plug up the
holes.
The program comes with a financial incentive of up to 20 percent off
long-term services subscription costs to “customers who achieve and sustain
their goals”, a pricing model McNealy characterized as a “disruptive
innovation.”
“This is ‘mankind versus IBM global services,'” McNealy said. “Instead of
a spigot for custom invoices, you get a spigot for creative services.”
Sun’s Preventive Services director Mike Harding characterized the program
as “Orion with a twist;” a reference to Project Orion, the code name for
the $100 per-employee pricing model for Sun’s Java Enterprise System software platform.
“It’s a single price for customers with a shared risk and a shared
reward,” Harding told internetnews.com. “We surveyed 600,000
customers to establish the more common problems. We’ve learned that any time
anyone touches a server; there is a 1-in-200 chance – or half a percentage
point – in causing an outage. Our friends at IBM and HP have been working
hard on the automated fix, but Sun is thinking more that you have to prevent
first and recover second. With Preventive Services, a CIO goes back to the
board and says, ‘because we are living a healthy digital lifestyle, we just
saved a ton of cash.'”
Harding said phase one of the project launched this week is specifically
for Sun products only. Version 1.1 of the program will encompass Sun’s
iForce partners and is expected to launch this winter. Version 2.0 is due
in May 2005 and will expand to all non-Sun systems, Harding said.
Sun has already performed 40 trial runs with representatives of its
financial services, government and telecommunication partners. Harding said
the program is being designed for the life sciences market as well as medium companies.
Mark Stahlman, managing director of research at financial analyst group
Caris & Company, told internetnews.com Sun is trying to shake things
up and that this is reflective of the recent trends in enterprise IT buying.
“There are a lot of people who are buying a lot more servers, so services
that are attached to those sales are a good opportunity,” Stahlman said.
“Service is a category that includes a whole bunch of things, including
consulting and break-fix capabilities. By radically altering pricing
strategies, there are chances for Sun to grow more quickly. And when version
2.0 kicks in and they step out of their own product categories… that kind
of a service strategy will kick in an afterburner and be a premium growth
opportunity for them.”
