BOSTON (CNN/Money) - I feel a certain bond to Sun Microsystems, possibly forged when I sat on a roundtable TV talk show in the late 1990s with John Gage, who was then the company's chief scientist.

On the show, Gage expressed bewilderment that Sun (Research) stock cost more than $90 per share.

Let's hope Gage -- and other Sun investors -- were able to sell around that time. Right now the stock hovers in the mid-$4 range. It's down almost 20 percent in the past week or so after downgrades by two analysts, including axman Steve Milunovich at Merrill Lynch.

With Sun's second-quarter earnings announcement due on Thursday, and with about six months behind us since my last Sun column, I figured it was a good time to survey some folks to see how the company is faring.

To gauge from the stock performance, the answer would be "not so well."

But I'm not sure the market is right. Compelled in part by the ancient maxim "Buy low and sell high," and in part by some moves Sun is about to make, I think an investment in what was once Silicon Valley's bellwether stock might be worth considering.

On Jan. 31, Sun will unveil Solaris 10, the first version of the platform that will support AMD Opteron, Intel XEON, and Sparc processors.

What's more, in February and March, the company will introduce a line of AMD-based servers that support Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

"I speak with a lot of developers," says Steve O'Grady, an analyst with Redmonk. "And developers are very fond of AMD hardware. Supporting that platform positions Sun well to continue the long fight it has in front of it."

Another event favoring Sun was the expiration of Microsoft's support for Windows NT 4 server software on Dec. 31.

That could open up a nice opportunity for McNealy & Co. as IT managers look for replacement software.

Sun is gaining considerable traction with its services and support division, and last quarter that segment accounted for 40 percent of the company's revenue.

Brent Bracelin, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, estimates that the segment will -- for the first time in Sun's history -- account for more than 50 percent of the company's profit for the year.

Which brings me to the final reason Sun may be worth buying: When Bracelin upgraded the stock to "outperform," based on that strong growth in services and support, Sun went down even further.

Some of the damning notes issued by analysts that drove the stock down were based on channel checks that found tepid interest in Sun products.

"Our channel checks do suggest that overall IT spending is fairly strong ... but that [Sun's] quarter did not experience a material acceleration," wrote Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi in his downgrade note.

Checks by Redmonk's O'Grady, however, found a lot of interest in Sun products.

Sun "remains a show-me story," says Steven Fortuna, analyst at Prudential Equities. "The jury is out on whether the company can stay in the black on a consistent basis."

I'm in the minority here, but I think Sun may have finally found its footing and, after three brutal years, may be back on track.

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