Specifically, a Sun Fire V20z with two Opteron 244 processors (which run at 1.8GHz), 2GB of main memory, and one 73 GB disk drive is available for $3,195, which is a 20 percent discount. A V20z with two Opteron 250 processors (which run at 2.4GHz), 4GB of memory, and a single disk costs $5,245.
Sun is selling a V40z with two Opteron 844 processors (which run at 1.8GHz), 2GB of main memory, and a single disk for $5,945. Under this promotion, a V40z with two 2.4GHz Opteron 848 processors (which run at 2.4GHz), 4GB of memory, and a single disk costs $8,745.
All four machines come with Solaris 9 for X86 preloaded, not the new Solaris 10. With this deal, Sun is probably doing two things: testing price elasticity and getting rid of boxes that have already had Solaris 9 burned on them. It probably costs more to reload and reburn Solaris 10 on the boxes than Sun’s profit margin at the discounted prices.
Sun is also offering discounts ranging from 25% to 35% on its Opteron-based Java Workstations under this promotion.
