Sun Microsystems Inc has been telling Wall Street that its server order growth rate is exceeding the 25% growth rate Hewlett- Packard Co recently recorded and says its business is not being affected by the effort HP is pouring into its V-Class server sales message. Sun told Merrill Lynch & Co’s Steve Milunovich that strong US growth and recovery in European markets is offsetting weakness in the Far East and that growth has picked up after the first quarter’s disappointing 13%. Milunovich is looking for 17% growth. It’s going to take a charge of over $100m to account for its Encore Computer Corp and Chorus Systemes SA acquisitions. Japan is 10% of revenue, South East Asia is 2% where growth is pegged to between 5% and 10%. Milunovich thinks Sun must be careful not to get overly absorbed with Java when IBM and HP are putting together aggressive electronic business solutions.
