"There was very, very scant information provided yesterday that would allow us to go through an analysis of what the effect is going to be on Sun's products," said Paul McGuckin, an analyst at Gartner Inc. who covers Sun.

Sun's new CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, told financial analysts in a conference call yesterday that the changes he is seeking will have little customer impact but will enable the company to focus on network computing and technologies to support it.

But Schwartz didn't provide the details about how that will be achieved, and company officials weren't adding any Thursday. When asked which product lines would be affected, the written response from a Sun spokeswoman was that "the company has not identified products or projects that will be affected at this time." The answer was similar for its impact on R&D.

That response has left analysts largely speculating.

For instance, Schwartz, in illustrating the direction he intends to take the company, cited several newer products as key to its future direction, such as its eight-core UltraSparc Niagara processor and the forthcoming "Thumper," an Opteron-based server that integrates with storage. But in regard to Thumper, McGuckin said that if he were a customer of Sun's proprietary RAID controller, he would have concerns.