June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Sun Microsystems Inc. will offer energy-saving flash memory as an option on all storage computers in a bid to challenge market-leader EMC Corp.

The chips, also known as solid-state disk drives, are three times faster and use one-fifth as much energy as traditional hard disks, Graham Lovell, Sun's senior director for open storage, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Sun, the fourth-largest maker of server computers, is following EMC by offering flash memory in its storage machines. The chips, although more expensive than regular drives, are more efficient because they don't have moving parts. Storage sales at Sun fell 5.4 percent to $530 million last quarter, accounting for about 16 percent of revenue.

``Sun needs to establish a different position in storage than the one they've had, and they have to take some risks,'' John Webster, an analyst at Illuminata Inc., a market research firm in Nashua, New Hampshire, said in a telephone interview. ``This would be one. Storage buyers are extremely conservative.''

Sun fell 53 cents to $12.41 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have sunk 32 percent this year.

Sun's potential customers include media companies and social-networking sites, Lovell said. Flash memory will be available on all of Sun storage computers, not just high-end systems, he said.

Sun is working with three undisclosed manufacturers to develop the flash-memory drives, Lovell said. The company will start shipping the systems before the end of the year, he said.

EMC led the worldwide external storage market last year, followed by International Business Machines Corp., Hewlett- Packard Co., Dell Inc., Hitachi Ltd. and NetApp Inc., according to researcher IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. Sun wasn't in the list of the top six vendors.

To contact the reporter on this story: Melita Marie Garza in New York at mgarza4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 3, 2008 17:46 EDT