Sun Acquires Tarantella, Accelerates Utility Computing Model

Sun Microsystems agreed to acquire Tarantella, a provider of secure application access software, for approximately $25 million. Tarantella's Secure Global Desktop family of products enables organizations to access and manage information, data and applications across multiple platforms, networks and devices. The software allows customers to web-enable any enterprise application without costly rewrites. Tarantella is based in Santa Cruz, California.


The companies said the combination of their technologies would allow the industry to deliver secure access to data and applications "anywhere on virtually any Java enabled device as a service for just dollars per day."


"With Tarantella technology and Solaris, Sun will create a whole new desktop experience by securely and seamlessly bridging application platform, device type, and location, enabling the delivery of desktop services just as we get cell phone services today," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer, Sun Microsystems.


Sun believes this capability will be a catalyst for accelerating the adoption of a utility computing model for the desktop and is extending an invitation to service providers, OEMs, device manufacturers and others to build on this new business opportunities. For instance, Sun customers, such as Time Warner Cable, Qualcomm and the US Department of Defense, could implement Sun Ray ultra-thin clients with full Microsoft interoperability as well as access to their Mainframe, Linux and other applications.


Sun also noted that more than 1.3 million licenses of Solaris 10 have been distributed since January 31, 2005.
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