Just three years after Sun Microsystems paid $2 billion in stock for server appliance maker Cobalt Networks, Sun has killed off the Cobalt product line. The move marks the end of the Cobalt brand of Linux servers at Sun, although Sun will continue to resell Linux operating systems from Red Hat and SuSE Linux on x86 servers. Sun also sells Linux for the desktop in the shape of the Sun Java Desktop, but its own server line now runs Solaris exclusively. . . .

A Sun representative said the company would maintain security patches and honor Cobalt warranties for the next three years. And Irish start-up Antefacto in 2002 picked up a part of the appliance server market by launching the S1000 high-availability appliance.

On Sun's Web site, the latest Cobalt appliance server, the dual-processor Raq 550, has joined the Raq4R and other Cobalt devices in the end-of-life section. The actual date of termination for the Raq 550 is Feb. 19, 2004, according to the Sun representative. No new Cobalt devices are listed on the Web site, and Sun's entry-level server area is now populated exclusively with the Sun Fire range of servers.

Sun's move marks the end of the line for one of the dot-com era's most innovative hardware manufacturers. As a start-up in the late '90s, Cobalt Networks popularized, if not created, the notion of the appliances--servers dedicated to a single task. Cobalt launched its first product, the Qube, in March 1998. This small, easy to use Web and e-mail server and gateway was designed for small businesses.

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