Sun Microsystems Inc will be taking a crack at the Pick base and piggybacking on to existing Pick value-added resellers as part of its overall plan to break into the commercial side of the market. It has signed a multi-million dollar agreement with Pick distributor Novadyne Computer Systems to seek an integrated solution consisting of Sun hardware and VMark Software Inc or Unidata Software Inc relational database software to its Pick resellers. The resellers will add their Pick applications before reselling to the user. Pick applications, a large and desirable base of business applications, including manufacturing, distribution, transportation and insurance, would be a significant contribution to Sun’s application list. Novadyne will service and support the Sun hardware. Sun also announced last week its expected distribution deal with Arrow Electronics’ commercial systems group. Sun, which will control authorisation itself in this as in the Novadyne deal, wants commercial Arrow resellers with proprietary Unix applications to convert to SunOS and Open Look. As part of their arrangement, Arrow is to set up three printing centres in Ohio, Massachusetts and California. As predicted too, Sun’s technical distributor, Access Graphics, will be taking over 75 of Sun’s smaller commercial resellers, bringing the number of accounts that Access supports up to 275.
