Sun Microsystems on Thursday apologized for the mess it caused its solution providers with a 25th Anniversary Sale direct sales promotion to customers, and unveiled measures to help soothe partners" concerns that the promotion could hurt their relationships with their clients. Sun on Monday started a two-week 25th Anniversary Sale promotion under which certain popular server, storage, software and services products were made available to customers with discounts ranging up to 60 percent, but only for products purchased direct from the vendor.
That promotion infuriated Sun"s solution providers, who were concerned that Sun was reaching directly to their current and potential customers with pricing they couldn"t possibly match, setting the stage for customers to cancel orders to get the special prices direct from Sun. They were also concerned that the new prices would be taken as street prices going forward, hurting both Sun and its channel partners. Sun on Thursday afternoon held an hour-long conference with all of its solution providers, the first 15 minutes of which were filled with apologies.