Cobalt Networks

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Cobalt Networks was a manufacturer of low-cost, Linux-based servers . The company was bought by Sun Microsystems in 2000 and production stopped in 2003.

history

The company was founded in 1996 in Mountain View ( California ) under the name Cobalt MicroServer founded. It pioneered the market for easy-to-use servers with secure web user interfaces for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and small and medium-sized businesses. After Cobalt went public in 1999 under the ticker symbol COBT, the price soared from a starting price of $ 22 to $ 128.13 at the close of trading.

In September 2000, Sun Microsystems announced, intending to compete with other Linux-based server vendors, that it would buy Cobalt for $ 2 billion in Sun shares. The purchase was closed in December 2000. Sun's Cobalt products had some success in the beginning, but this soon faded dramatically with the declining ISP market. In 2003, Sun withdrew the Cobalt products from the market and released the associated software and firmware as open source .

Products

Cobalt Networks has manufactured many types of server appliances. The two most successful were the Cobalt RaQ3 and RaQ4. The RaQ3 had a 300 MHz AMD K6-2 processor, while the RaQ4 had a clock rate of 450 MHz. Cobalt made a RaQ2 with a 250 MHz RM5231 microprocessor, RaQ5 with 1 GHz and Sun Cobal RaQ XTR.

The dedicated server market was the largest market for Cobalt Networks. CobaltRacks was and is an independent server company that bought hundreds of servers from Cobalt Networks. Many other hosters and ISPs bought Cobalt Networks servers. The servers themselves were often referred to as "blue pizza boxes" by the employees of these hosting companies because of their size, shape and color.

System administrators could operate Cobalt systems via a small LC display in the middle of the device and four buttons to the right of it.

Although the product line was discontinued by Sun after three years, Cobalt's servers had a lasting impact on the market. It was the most successful server appliance on the market at the time and its success resulted in the foundation of the blade server pioneer RLX Technologies, which was later bought by Hewlett-Packard . Cobalt's engineers also helped establish Sun's current presence in the x86 market by developing Sun's first x86 server, the LX50, and providing additional development and marketing resources that later resulted in Sun's Sun Fire V60x and V65x servers .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Shankland: Sour market pushes Linux stocks below IPO prices. CNET News, April 14, 2000, accessed November 30, 2006 .
  2. ↑ Steven J Vaughan-Nichols: Sun's Cobalt Server Software Gets Open-Source Life. eWeek, January 6, 2004, accessed November 30, 2006 .
  3. ^ Ashlee Vance: Sun drives the final nail in Cobalt's coffin. December 18, 2003, accessed June 9, 2007 .

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