Sun Microsystem Business Revenues (Latest Discovery)

Image via CrunchBase

Thanks to Sun Microsystem's CEO Jonathan Schwartz for his sharing.

Check out how Sun Microsystem actually makes money these days because Sun is usually associated with the open source notion.

1. Enterprise SPARC systems - Unix server (hardware platform) such as blade server.
   
2. Licensed Java run-time (JRE) for PC, set top boxes and mobile devices (software).
   
   Even though Java run-time can be downloaded for free, but that is from a user point of view. This is the trick.... In fact, if you are hardware system manufacturer, Java run-time is not free for you.
   
   First of all, if you download Java run-time (JRE), you have to install it, you can't copy the JRE from one machine to another, therefore, you can't redistribute the JRE (without the installer) without permission from Sun.
   
   Secondly, there is only a handful of platforms for download of JRE and Symbian, Mac OS, Windows Mobile are not included. Try to download and see.
   
   
   
   Then, check out here why would hardware system manufacturer would purchase the Java run-time.
   
   
3. MySQL - Enterprise database
   
4. Solaris - enterprise computing and the cloud
   
5. Niagara platform - Competiting with IBM's AIX and HP's HPUX
   
6. Amber Road - storage system

This indicates that Sun Microsystem is selling technology and the marketing is free-for end-user download termed as either GPL or LGPL.