Sun, Deloitte Team on Consolidation Services

Sun Microsystems Inc. tightened its partnership with Deloitte Consulting last week, with the two companies merging their consolidation services.

The goal, according to officials from both companies at an event here, is to put a single face on their consolidation consulting projects, as more and more users turn to consolidation as a way to cut costs and increase manageability of their infrastructures.

In response to the trend, the Deloitte and Sun Professional Services group, which signed an initial agreement in March 2002, merged much of their offerings, including methodologies, employees, rates, and marketing and sales tool kits. They are also now collaborating on reference architectures and engagement models.

IT consolidation Sun and Deloitte tighten consulting services, extending a March 2002 agreement on: Resource Library: Services Merged company teams, rates and methodologies Sales Integrated sales and marketing tools; a single engagement model Technology Deloitte input on reference architectures built on Sun products

"This is a marriage," said Robert Frazzini, global leader of technology integration at Deloitte, in New York. "We took two teams and put them together. Its a joint team, joint goals, with a joint sales and marketing force."

Deloitte, via its RightSize program, offers enterprises a business-level approach to IT consolidation, helping companies map out options. Sun, of Santa Clara, Calif., focuses more on the implementation of those consolidation plans, officials said.

Gordon Haff, an analyst with Illuminata Inc., in Nashua, N.H., said the move makes sense. "One of the pieces that Sun has been missing is that high-business-level consulting capability," Haff said.

Its also an indication that Sun is following its plan of offering services through partners rather than growing them on its own, Haff added.

The province of Nova Scotia recently moved its SAP AG R/3 applications from 12 Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. servers onto a Sun Fire 15K server and a V880 server, backed up by Sun StorEdge devices.

Susan Sparks, director of corporate information services for Nova Scotia, said Sun services were important not only in mapping out the needs but also in training her staff once the systems were in place.

"We told them that we wanted to be self-sufficient when they left, and we were," Sparks said. "We needed strong services, and thats what we got."