I wish to share our experience with Sun Startup Essentials program. We had been following the program when it was launched in US and were one of the early members in India. Sun came up with great hardware at highly competitive prices. The only thing that was available for prices lower than theirs was assembled commodity stuff with obviously lower config. We were really impressed with the way they provided relevant information and followed up with us.
Additionally, they organized an event in NCR in association with TiE where entrepreneurs got a chance to get their facts right and meet many investors.
I recommend this program to anyone who is an entrepreneur.

Regards,

Mohit Vaish

Let me introduce myself here , I manage the Sun Startup Essentials program in India.

Its good to see this discussion here and I thought it might be a good idea for mr to clarify a few things about the program like the eligibility criteria and get an opportunity to interact and get some constructive feedback to improve the program.

Sun Startup Essentials Program was launched in US last year and is successful there with more than a thousand applications received from Startups to be a part of the program. The program was launched in India and China simultaneously in August this year and the program has been launched in Israel and UK last month. We have got significant traction since our launch in India and China.

Coming to the program and the qualifying criteria ( which I wanted to clarify )

Sun Startup Essentials program is Sun’s effort to help Startups get a jumpstart in their new business. This program brings Sun’s products to startups at deep discounts to lower the acquisition cost and help startups conserve cash and also brings free access to Sun Engineering team helping startups reduce the time to market for their offerings.

Sun’s new Startup Essentials Program key offerings are:

* Award winning hardware from Sun at deeply discounted prices
* Free software
* Discounted Web Hosting offering
* Technical help from Sun Engineering team

In today’s complex business environment, we at Sun Microsystems believe that these offerings are designed specifically to help Startups in their early stages to jumpstart their businesses.

For the purposes of the Program , we defined Startups as

1. Companies with less than 150 employees.
2. Companies which have been in existence for less than 4 years.
3. Business Presence in India.
4. Valid Street Address

Trust this clarifies on the criteria part. We would appreciate any feedback to make the program better.

Drop me a mail at Bakshish.Dutta@Sun.com or respond on this blog.

Bakshish Dutta

But again why woudl only SUN provide such service, when would IBM give there services at affordable prices fro startups, and HP giving away there hardware resources very cheap and helping startups get growing….have a new IDEA , why not pull in Accenture,Capegemini,KPMG to give very low charged consultancy to help startup grow…… well lets have a forum for all these guys to pour in something for startups and get INDIAn based startup grow.

I still dont’ understand and have been in past involved with IBM doing the same theoretical views, it doesn’t take any new turn with SUN either.

If SUN really have to help the Indian startup segments, let them show a way to other Industry needs also than reaching only software giants, let SUN do the mentoring of how a 100+ [employees] manufacturing unit, textile unit could run ERP, SCM’s using the SUN patented systems, let them show the automobile industry the way to use SUN products or for that matter any new technologies.If they have to enrich the society and not only plan to sell off there medium to draw a diff revenue, then they should really assist and probably play a big role which none of the major giants [IBM, HP,Accenture] are doing, they setup servicing factories in INDIA and any developed nation only to get cheap labor and nothing they do for the society, infact why would they also, they r MNC’s btw.

SUN also realised offlate what could a OpenSource technology could make the diff and we all know why was JRE released as OSS, which was under wraps for many years.I have high regards to SUN products, but again time changes so as the development resources.

As far as mentoring etc is concerned, why would startups take mentoring gyaan from bureaucrats from Sun?

This is a pure software + hardware discounted plan for startup and I guess any startup which has gained some decent traction in the market should get into such plans.

Are they calling a Company 150 employees a Startup. Its already started up.

Because startup has no more than 10 ppl, if starts growing more than 10 ppl then its called startuped.

37signal is actual startup because they have only 7 ppl controlling thousands of customers thru their beatifull products.

If a company has 150 employees then what is there to deliver programs, they already well estalblished no need of SUN Startup Enssentials.

Startup essential means: The package should contain: Mentoring, Strategy advice, Technical Advicse, Give away cheap Hardware Open SOurce S/ws, Alpha and Beta Testers, Feedbackers, crowd investment, Marketing Advice, Assiting in Hiring and all other stuffs that favour during very very rough stage: a startup stage.