In a December 9th “chalk talk” session with Sun CTO Lew Tucker and Senior VP David Douglas, Sun announced plans to shutter its current Network.com service and introduce a new Cloud Computing business unit.

Included in their plans for the new division: the ability to purchase compute time on Sun’s server cloud with a credit card, allowing anyone from a company to allocate computing resources.  This would allow any business user to provision their own servers and services without having to go to IT.

Sun’s pitch for the new cloud computing division is essentially two-fold: cost savings, along with eco friendliness:

For companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint and run an ecologically-responsible IT shop, cloud computing has a lot to offer. For example, a small company can run all of its business applications in a cloud and avoid operating a data center entirely. Similarly, a large company can expand into a cloud rather than build out its existing data center.

Overall, cloud computing means that fewer companies need to provide space to house their Web servers and the power to run and cool them. On the cloud provider’s side, the datacenter can be built to take advantage of natural resources, such as local hydro electric power, and designed with the most modern and efficient servers available.

This new business unit comes at a troubled time for Sun.  Their first quarter fiscal year 2009 financial report showed a $1.67 bill USD loss, with a 7.1% decrease in overall revenue as compared with 2008.  Sun’s stock price has slid 80% in value since December 2007.

More details at Sun’s website.

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Web, Green Tech, SaaS