A Sun representative said the company would maintain security patches and honor Cobalt warranties for the next three years. And Irish start-up Antefacto in 2002 picked up a part of the appliance server market by launching the S1000 high-availability appliance.
On Sun's Web site, the latest Cobalt appliance server, the dual-processor Raq 550, has joined the Raq4R and other Cobalt devices in the end-of-life section. The actual date of termination for the Raq 550 is Feb. 19, 2004, according to the Sun representative. No new Cobalt devices are listed on the Web site, and Sun's entry-level server area is now populated exclusively with the Sun Fire range of servers.
Sun's move marks the end of the line for one of the dot-com era's most innovative hardware manufacturers. As a start-up in the late '90s, Cobalt Networks popularized, if not created, the notion of the appliances--servers dedicated to a single task. Cobalt launched its first product, the Qube, in March 1998. This small, easy to use Web and e-mail server and gateway was designed for small businesses.
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