Sun plans white-label push

OEM launch to broaden appeal

Sun is recruiting partners to put their badges on its products.

The firm is reportedly to launch an OEM (original equipment manufacturing) division whereby third-parties license Sun products but sell them under their own brands.

The strategy is nothing new in IT but represents something of a change for Sun which has broadly licensed Java but tended to keep hardware close to itself.

Although the firm licensed its Sparc server architecture to firms such as Solbourne and Tatung in the 1990s, for example, the sector never grew competitive market shares.

However, perhaps buoyed by the strengthening of its relationship with Fujitsu Siemens on servers – the firms are jointly developing a new family of products - Sun appears to be formalising its approach to the market.