internetnews.com: HP Goes After Sun Customers

“Hewlett-Packard will offer Sun Microsystems customers $25,000
as an incentive to switch to HP systems running Linux, the company
confirmed to internetnews.com Friday.

“The offer from HP comes in the midst of a bad period for Sun.
On Monday, the once high-flying systems vendor warned that it would
run a loss of between 7 cents and 10 cents per share in the most
recent quarter, a significantly higher loss than the roughly 2
cents per share loss analysts were anticipating.

“On Thursday, Merrill Lynch technology analyst Steven
Milunovich, in an open letter/research note, urged Sun to slash as
much as 15 percent of its workforce and focus on being a niche
player in mission-critical computing or risk being acquired — or
worse.

“HP appears to be taking Sun’s current woes as an opportunity to
press its advantage, and apply further pressure on Sun’s
margins…”

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