Well that's a good question. Maybe I'm really asking if anyone here sees value in the premium Sun is charging.
I've priced out a couple servers that would work as our first, and they are ~ $5k vs. a similar server from Dell running $3.5k. From what I understand the Startup Essentials program has some good discounting and so maybe it brings the pricing back to parity.
I have had great success with Dell 1U & 2U PowerEdge machines running FreeBSD. I simply see no reason to pay a premium given how far I can take these Dell machines in terms of scalability.
Maybe the price equalizes with this new program. I don't know, but I doubt it will over time.