Production delays have left Sun Microsystems behind schedule in fulfilling orders for servers based on the new UltraSPARC III processor.

Visitors to Sun's online ecommerce site are told that they have a wait on their hands if they want to buy either a Sun Blade 1000 workstation, featuring a 750Mhz UltraSPARC III processor, or the rack-mount Sun Fire server are told they have a wait on their hands.

Supplies of both products are "constrained" - in other words there are not enough of them to go around.

The notice on the Sun site reads: "Demand for this product is so strong that it exceeds availability. If you proceed with your order, Sun will send you an email with the scheduled shipment date as soon as possible. Please contact your local sales representative or call 800-SUN-0404 for more information."

Simon Tindall, volume sales manager at Sun, said the roll-out of UltraSPARC III-powered kit throughout this year remained on course, despite shipment delays for the first two products based on the platform.

"There will be no significant shipments of the Sun Fire until next month. We are shipping Blade products to selected accounts. There is some product slippage but we are ramping up production to clear the current backlog," he said. "Demand has been strong but we'll get through the backlog and begin shipping in volume next quarter." ®

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