Sun Microsystems Inc plans to go straight for Compaq Computer Corp’s throat when it launches its new Peripheral Component Interconnect PCI workstation next week, a company official said. Sun’s vice president and general manager of the Workstation Product Group said the machines, code-named Darwin (CI No 3,314), will be street competitive with them [Compaq] per megahertz. There will be three models in the Darwin family, the Ultra 5, 10 and 60, manufactured and distributed by Taiwan’s Mitac International Corp. The Ultra 5 will contain a 270MHz UltaSparc IIi processor, 64 to 512Mb of Random Access Memory, a 4Gb hard drive as well as a floppy and CD-ROM drives and an 8-bit integrated graphics and BaseT network card. The device will be about the same size as a pizza box and will retail under the $4,000 mark. The Ultra 10 will sell for $13,000, based on a 300MHz UltraSparc IIi chip, supporting 1,024Mb of RAM and featuring Sun’s new 24-bit graphics architecture Elite3D. Not only does Sun want to take some of the wind out of Compaq’s sails, but it wants to be able to compete with Intel Corp at street price and will turn up the heat on its services offering. It is apparently set to offer two maintenance plans that will be 60% cheaper than comparable offerings from Compaq. The company will pre-install Darwin with an easier-to-cope-with version of Solaris, version 2.6 and will offer a web-based desktop featuring Netscape Communications Corp’s Navigator. The official launch is scheduled for next week.
