"We have seen unbelievable interest in the platform since then," said Tom Goguen, Sun vice president of software marketing. Future plans call for Sun to make its storage management software available for free also.

Users currently paying for use of the products within Solaris Enterprise System are not being shortchanged through the new free format, according to Sun. Those who have been paying $140 per employee a year for Java Enterprise System, for example, receive a warranty, indemnification, and value-added services, Goguen said.

Sun also sees its platform as ideal for developing services on Web 2.0, because it provides identity management as well as integration for SOA environments. Web 2.0 refers to an effort to move the Web from static sites to a computing platform for Internet-based applications.

Schwartz rejected the contention that Sun's previous move to offer its application server for free has not yielded much benefit, saying the application server, serving as Sun's reference implement for Java, has had approximately 2 million downloads.

"In terms of the volume of application servers out there, Sun's reference implementation is in fact the de facto standard for those who want to write a J2EE application," Schwartz said.