The Hindu Business Line : Sun Micro’s initiative for entrepreneurs, new entrants

Bangalore, Aug. 16 Sun Microsystems India has announced an initiative called Startups Essentials to help entrepreneurs and early stage companies to get to a running start.

Challenges faced while starting up a company include building the right IT partnerships. Sun will provide discounts on its products and services, technical help and handholding to eligible companies.

Access to software such as Apache, MySQL and Perl optimised to run on the operating system Solaris 10 will be offered, and products including Fire x64 servers, the hybrid Thumper can be bought at discounted rates.

The company has tied up with Web hosting providers Joyent and Navisite to rent discounted infrastructure.

New programme

It will tie up with institutes with incubation centres (in IITs) and industry bodies such as TiE and IAMAI to launch events addressing startups in a month to spread the word, said Mr K.P. Unnikrishnan, Director-Marketing, Strategic Alliances and Teleweb Sales, Sun Microsystems India. Now is the right time for such a programme, as venture capital investment is growing and Web 2.0 is sprouting startups, believes the company. Non-IT firms in pharma, retail and biotech industries are also expected to participate in the programme.

“The aim is to build long-term relationships with companies that will be Fortune 500 companies of tomorrow,” said Mr Sanjay Sharma, Director, Startups in Emerging Markets Worldwide, Sun Microsystems.

Over 700 companies enlisted with the year-long programme when it was launched in the US in November 2006.

The company has now introduced the programme to India and China, with plans to extend to Brazil, Russia and Korea soon.

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