LX50 bows out in favor of successors Sun Microsystems will stop selling its LX50 server, the company’s first general purpose Intel x86-based server, on Oct. 17.According to a Sun statement released to InfoWorld on Tuesday but actually made on July 15, the decision to announce “end of life,” or EOL, for the LX50 is “a natural progression in the lifecycle of its product line.” The system will no longer be orderable after Oct. 16.“Sun, as does other systems companies, EOLs and introduces follow-on products. The [Intel-based] V60x and V65x are the next offerings in a continually broadening low-end x86 portfolio in addition to its large in SPARC/Solaris low-end offerings,” Sun said. An analyst said he was not surprised by the discontinuance, noting that Sun since introducing the LX50 has released other Intel-based hardware.“I’m not surprised. It’s been out for a year now. So products get replaced in a fairly regular cycle, particularly when you’re talking about Intel processor-based systems,” said Gordon Haff, senior analyst at Illuminata, in Nashua, N.H.The award-winning LX50, priced at $1,195 in an entry-level configuration, is a dual Pentium III-based rackmounted server introduced one year ago today, Aug. 12, 2002. It runs either Linux or the Intel version of Solaris. Technology Industry