Sun has taken us up on our invitation for it to respond to a document prepared by Compaq which apparently rubbishes its Sun Cluster technology (see this story).

Jonathan Mills, software product manufacturing manager at Sun UK, denied Compaq's claims that it was taking a proprietary stance on clustering and file systems, and quoted recent IDC figures suggesting Sun was continuing to maintain a grip on the worldwide Unix server market.

Said Mills: "It's interesting they [Q] are after us from that point of view. Sun Cluster, in its existing form, has done very well and we have some larger corporate accounts using it.

"The way we've written Cluster is for it not to care about the file systems it runs on."

He said that Compaq's claim that its own clustering technology is deeply wedded to software firm Oracle ignored the fundamental fact that that company will work closely "with any significant market player" - whether it be Sun, HP, IBM or Compaq.

He said that Sun's corporate customers cared more about scaleability, availability and manageability, and that data transition - to them - was only a short term concern.

The IDC figures, released recently, showed that in the Unix server space, Sun had 39 per cent market share, IBM 16 per cent and HP 23 per cent. Sun had gained 45 per cent market share year on year.

Nor were competitors' claims that UltraSparc III systems meant throwing the baby out with the babywater true, said Mills. While there were motherboard changes, customers' applications needed no re-writing and the transition was not nearly as significant as competitors were alleging.

It was all part of the rough and tumble of competition, a little like Her Majesty's Opposition having a duty to attack the government.

PS. Intel does not like Sun Microsystems. ®