The new Sun Fire V40z server uses four Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Opteron microprocessors per box, twice the number of its previous Sun Fire servers.

The company also announced the Sun Java W1100z and Sun Java W2100z workstations, which also use AMD's Opteron processors. All three are available immediately.

Sun, which has faced criticism in recent years for selling only high-end, high-priced servers using proprietary technology, has pushed aggressively to offer cheaper servers in a bid to boost market share that has eroded since the dot-com bust in late 2000.

In addition to running Linux software from Red Hat Inc. or Novell Inc.'s SuSe unit, Sun's Sun Fire servers also run Sun's version of Unix, called Solaris.

Sun also cut prices for the entry level Sun Fire V20z. The starting price for the V20z server with 2.2 gigahertz Opteron 248 processors is now $995, down a third.