Sun Microsystems Inc’s Network Business Advantage programme, which encompasses data warehousing and decision support, finance and manufacturing, and customer management, was worth $1,200m for the year ending June 1995, the company said. It plans to create three data warehouse competency centres, two in the US and one in Europe, under what it terms a Decision Warehouse initiative to test these applications, and said this business is worth some $600m. Carleton Corp, Kenan Technologies Corp, Arbor Software Inc and HOPS International have joined the programme as independent software vendor partners. Integrated Sun-based data warehouse implementations will be offered through KPMG, Price Waterhouse, Andersen Consulting and SHL Systemhouse Inc. The second prong, a Customer Management Solutions programme that has netted $200m since its inception late last year, has the fastest growth – Sun now has 45 partners supplying computer telephony integration, speech and signal processing and customer management applications and tools in this area. Solutions in this area will go through integrators focused on one or more specific industries. Andersen will concentrate on utilities and telecommunications, Cambridge Technology Partners on insurance and SAIC/IEX, SHL Systemhouse and Broadway & Seymour will concentrate on banking. A BusinessWare stream, worth $400m, will provide financial, manufacturing and business applications from the likes of SAP AG, Dun & Bradstreet Corp, Oracle Corp, Baan International BV, Computer Associates I nternational Inc, PeopleSoft Inc and Platinum Technology Inc. Sun has also strengthened its ties with Sparcsystems builder Cray Research Inc and OEM customer Amdahl Corp; the three will work to optimise SAP R/3 for Sun and Cray servers which all three will sell. Sun will also expand its field operations organisation under vice-president Joe Roebuck by employing additional staff to support the programme.
