This week’s MashupDemo event in London, which saw 16 startups demo, coincided with an interesting announcement from Sun Microsystems. The tech giant appears to have suddenly realised there is a startup scene in Europe and has lauched its Sun Startup Essentials (SSE) programme in the UK and Israel, prior to a wider European roll-out next year. This offers access to advanced Sun technologies and consultancy at a discounted rate, with the implicit suggestion that if the startup gets bigger they may well want to buy more from Sun down the track.
Startups ae invited to apply for the programme and need to meet Sun’s selection criteria. The startup needs to be less than four years old, less that 150 employees, and a real business (not just someone’s part-time project). What you get is free software, discounts on Sun equipment with x86 chips and Spark chips and storage, plus NTT Online Europe is offering discounts to members of the programme. There’s more info here and here.
Do you think that’s a helpful offer from Sun or would you like to see more? What other tech companies do you think should offer discounts to startups?