Sun Microsystems plans to begin a second phase of its "try and buy" promotion Friday, offering customers a free 60-day trial of its AMD Opteron-based servers, the company confirmed Thursday.

Sun launched the first phase earlier this year to get customers to try servers with the company's unusual 32-thread UltraSparc T1 processor. By extending the promotion to the X4100 and X4200 "Galaxy" servers launched last year, Sun is hoping to kick-start sales and attract more new customers to Sun.

"It's going to help accelerate the ramp of the Galaxy product line," said Pradeep Pramar, product marketing manager for Sun's Network Systems Group, founded two years ago to sell servers based on x86 chips such as Intel's Xeon or Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron. "We're going to go live tomorrow."

Sun's move to x86 servers was years later than rivals' and initially somewhat unenthusiastic, but promotions such as Friday's signal the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's attempts to make up for lost time. President Jonathan Schwartz has said one of the company's biggest x86 challenges has been just informing potential customers that Sun sells them and not just Sparc-based systems.