Sun Microsystems was hoping to bump up their enterprise-class server offerings this year, but unexpectedly they have had to delay the upcoming long-awaited release of the “Rock” processor. The CPU is a revision of the infamous UltraSparc that was originally expected towards the middle of this year. Now it seems the CPU has been pushed back all the way to the latter half of 2009.
The reason for the delay is an expanded testing window, according to Sun, who claims they need to fully validate the processor and make sure it is everything they had promised. They don't cite production issues, saying that technical flaws did not convince them to hold it back. With CPUs aimed exclusively at businesses with extremely heavy or complex workloads, this seems critical for Sun's processor business.