Sun processors are an excellent fit for media streaming applications. This kind of applications will increase the usage of those processor in time (YouTube, Joost and co) and also many other commercial applications for Telecos.

Java works on them like a charm and Sun engineers optimized bot their C/C++ compilers as well as GCC for the Niagara processors. I have been recently working on those platforms I I had to convert some applications for audio streaming from SparcV9 to Niagara T1 and without no hand optimization in the code but with auto-parallelizations I was able to obtain about 10% increase.
With minor optimization(more threads spawned in order to keep all the cores/threads busy) the performance increased from 364 to 721 audio RTP ports.

Another advantage for UltraSparcs is that they are consuming way less power than Intel equivalents.

What it intrigues me is why this processor is not used in smaller devices as NAS or workstations where it could outperform many of the competitors due to its reduced power consumption and computing power?

I would personally love a Niagara powered NAS or UMPC or macMini-like workstation.

The chip design itself is also open source. I expect it will evolve quickly to fill in required missing pieces for attracting a number of other high end applications.

In the meantime SUN can also provide Intel processors in the boxes they are selling. The buyer chooses the machine that best fits their application. The money still goes to SUN….

I am forcasting SUNny skies in six to 12 months.