As a competitive edge and a user enticement, Sun has created a broad, integrated, pre-tested open source stack around the GlassFish web server.

The widgetry is called the GlassFish Portfolio and is supposed to lower TCO as well as improve overall price/performance and speed time-to-market.

Besides the GlassFish Enterprise Server, it includes Apache Tomcat, Ruby, PHP, Java support, Memcached, Squid, Liferay Portal, a GlassFish ESB and the proprietary Sun Enterprise Manager.

Subscriptions start at $999 a server which will just buy patches. Platinum support with its dedicated hand-holders and consulting runs $8,999 a server.

GlassFish and MySQL, the open source database, are now housed in the same unit since MySQL boss Marten Mickos announced the other day that he was leaving Sun but, anticipating that event, the GlassFish Portfolio and the database have also been integrated. MySQL support is extra.

Sun is pointing the Portfolio at extremely high-scale mission-critical environments and departmental applications.

It claims GlassFish is the most downloaded web server on the planet but Sun barely registers a heartbeat in terms of market share. It reportedly has 350,000 confirmed users and 1,200 users reportedly registering a day.

Karen Tegan Padir, the new chief of the combined MySQL and Software Infrastructure Group, isn't expecting companies to rip out their existing WebSphere and WebLogic installations - or their Oracle and SQL Server databases for that matter - but she claims GlassFish and MySQL get picked up for new projects that can grow up to be mission-critical.

The attraction is supposed to be the open source price point. Sun claims a 90% or better cut in TCO and a sevenfold increase in application price/performance. Integration will add standardization another boon.

As an add-on to the Portfolio, Sun's dangling the telecoms-grade open source GlassFish Communications Server for converged multimedia apps, a solution for service providers based on Project SailFin.