Paul Robinson writes:
It's been a long time coming, but it has now been announced that those of us in the UK are able to get "enterprise-grade products at ridiculously low prices" from the Unix king of old, Sun Microsystems. At first this seems general sales shill talk, but when Sun offered this programme in the US last November, it caused quite a few 'alpha-geeks' to take another look at this once-mighty giant of the Unix World.
Sun, it would seem, is now keen to talk to us geeks here in Europe, starting with the UK. Over the last year they have become involved in various community projects, sponsoring events from product pitch/demos all the way down to BarCamp events.
The issue they're trying to fix is that whilst they once had a huge amount of prestige in the technical community, they changed their focus around the dot.com era to talking to heads of finance and CEOs. That left many geeks out in the cold, and they never quite had the dot.com sheen about them, so they suffered on both flanks. Bringing Startup Essentials to the UK - a programme designed to have as much geek/tech appeal as it does financial - is just another step forward in bringing them back to the fold.
So what's in the goody box if you have been trading less than 4 years, have fewer than 150 employees, are based in a country where they offer the programme, have a "verifiable company presence" and don't mind the maximum spend of £75,000/year? (phew!)
Well, first off there's discounted hardware. This isn't a few percent off - it's deep enough to make Sun price-competitive with big-box pushers like Dell. I'm yet to be convinced that their discounted storage solutions are going to be as keenly priced, but at least you know it's going to make people in suits warm and fuzzy inside.
Then there is the emphasis on free software. Sure, you can download and manage Apache, MySQL and the gang yourself, but Sun is trying to show their geek-cred by making it all out-of-the-box easy. Oh, and Solaris and a whole bunch of development tools are now in the wild as well, albeit only free in the sense of a child wearing reins near an interesting looking cliff.
Next up is a spot of training and free advice. With the last decade of the geek community treating Sun like an unwanted grandparent at Christmas, it's no wonder that they felt we might all need a refresher course. If the $49/incident tech support costs make you a little ruffled, there are of course the well tracked official forums (amongst others) to give you a hand.
Lastly, just in case you're the kind of person who really doesn't like hardware - and hey, in the Web 2.0 World, who wants hardware, right? - Sun have also partnered up with some hosting companies that will do all the leg-work for you, again offering discounts if you qualify. Unfortunately for those of us based in the EU who care about not having our data move outside the EEA, the only current EU-based partner has an air about them that suggests your invitation to a meeting will simply read "Bring Money".
Time will tell if this is going to play out well for Sun. My gut instinct is they're making the right moves, and it's great that the EU is starting to get some attention. I wonder if it's too little, too late, but at the same time find myself reading through server specs from a company I hadn't considered in years...
Auntie Beeb has launched its own widgetised Home Page. Still in Beta, the (I presume) seasonal, cranberry pallette does not have the reassuring influence of the current blue page design, nor indeed the implied gravitas of the crisp red black and white News Home Page. Cleverly though, they do employ different colour schemes for different types of content. However, what it might lack in clean aesthetics, it makes up for in simple useability and customisation. Web 2.0? Hmm maybe, maybe not quite, but hurrah, they do have some real interactive gems around the site - my favorite being the Create Your Own Christmas Menu feature from the BBC Food site. Once chosen, you can print just the menu, or the full recipes and shopping list.
