It’s just a tiny part of a $13 billion company, but Sun Microsystems’ (NASDAQ: JAVA) Open Storage program exemplifies everything the company had hoped to achieve in its turnaround efforts.

Built on intelligent storage controllers, industry standard hardware and open source software, the program achieved 63 percent year-over-year growth in billings in one of the worst markets in memory for data storage spending.

What’s more, the program has been able to convert users who download Sun’s open source software into paying customers, realizing a central vision of CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

“We’re able to monetize a lot of these open source opportunities,” said Graham Lovell, director of Sun’s Open Storage efforts. “We’re the poster child for the success of Jonathan’s strategy.”

With $127 million in billings in the last four quarters, just a small part of Sun’s $2 billion data storage business, the Open Storage program might not be big enough to have much of an effect on Sun’s overall business, but Lovell said he and other members of the team have joked about what a good startup the program would make.

“If this was a startup, we’d be having celebrations in the street,” he said.

Read whole article (enterprisestorageforum.com)