Sun Microsystems has finally admitted that its retail Grid is a big failure.

In fact, the service hasn't even been launched, despite a ceremony last year in which Sun president Jonathan Schwartz flipped a symbolical switch to take the grid live.

The path to the grid's failure is paved with lies.

Last year in May the company's grid chief Aisling MacRunnels claimed that: "We had to reprioritise things because some very large banking customers needed capacity. We got way better response than we anticipated."

At least Schwartz himself technically wasn't lying when he told vnunet.com:

"What we have seen is a large number of CIOs who are now benchmarking their data centres and trying to figure out if they are spending more than a buck an hour. I see a huge amount of proofs of concepts where customers are looking at what they are paying for their own grid or what they are paying outsourcers."

At the time he just conveniently left out (if he knew) that those companies came to the conclusion that a grid failed to offer them the required level of security assurances. And that the US State Department raised a red flag, forcing Sun to instate a check to keep out customers from terrorist states.

The grid now again is "imminent", Schwartz claimed last Friday.

But somehow the server maker has lost its credibility in making those promises.

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Tags: sun microsystems, grid, jonathan schwartz