Sun T1000 approved

Unless you missed the hubbub, Sun are offering the T1000/T2000 on 'Try and Buy', and I'm sure there's has been a recent spurt because of Jonathan Schwartz's suggestion that receivers that provide good reviews might be allowed to keep them.

Now I'm no stranger to Sun kit, having reviewed a few items before now. Earlier this year, I also reviewed the Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation and that review will be hitting a website soon.

Fortunately I have good contacts at Sun in the US (and their PR group) who can arrange for test units so that I can review them. My attempts at doing the same with UK Sun contacts has been less than successful. In fact, I've never once received a response from people at the Sun UK office, despite meeting them in person and discussing my needs and requirements, exchanging business cards, and dropping them an email. A more touchy person might have taken offence at that, but since I have such good US contacts I'm not worried.

The T1000 is appealing to me because of Cheffy - we are slowly adding new functionality to the system, and as a web application the multiple threads supported by the T1 CPU should be a perfect fit.

I was reluctant to apply, but ultimately decided I had nothing to lose. After a quick phone call last week, I'm pleased to say I've been approved. No word yet on when it might arrive, but it does look like I'm on some sort of list and in queue waiting for delivery.

Unsurprisingly, based on Jonathan's suggestion, I'll be documenting my thoughts on the product here. Not because I want to keep the unit (although I wouldn't object), but because I want to see how good the machine is after my experience with the v40z which, if I had the money, I would have bought in a shot. I'm expecting the T1000, a lower priced (and lower power) server to achieve similar performance to the larger multi-CPU v40z.