While it’s way too soon to say Sun is back on track, the return of Bechtolsheim, aggressive improvements in products and a healthy dose of humility among Sun’s executives mean the troubled company and its investors have more cause for optimism than they’ve had in years.
New Hopes From Sun’s Idea Factory
48 Comments
2005-10-18 3:57 pm
Arun
Mind you, if you read the rest of that article, it’s hardly a ringing endorsement is it? I wouldn’t have thought that Sun’s accountants or investors would call it a non-existant point.
Stick to the point. The topic was JES and the article was an endorsment of a 43% gain in licenses. Since JES licenses are subscription they tend to be constant revenue generators rather than onetime deals. Also this is a new market for Sun ( and the industry) and a new way of buying software for customers, I expect the uptake to be slow. Also Big customers don’t make big descisions.
Your naive views on how things work tell me you have no clue how enterprises work. You should stick to universities and not go into turf that is clearly out of your reach.
BTW, most linux trolls have stopped mentioning the points you are regurgitating, owing to a shift in Sun’s strategies . You however seem to be stuck in a time bubble, where the linux zealots used to be a year ago. One only needs to go through past Sun articles on OSnews to see that everything you are mentioning here is old linux zealot dogma that is outdated. Unfortunately, most linux zealots have wised up and moved on. But you remain trapped. everything you bring up has already happened and changed and has become obsolete. It’s time you moved on and let smart, reasonable people discuss like adults.
2005-10-18 3:59 pm
Arun
Also Big customers don’t make big descisions.
Should have been:
Also Big customers don’t make big descisions, quickly and without planning.
Microsoft and linux are facing the same slow decision making processes in enterprises.
2005-10-18 5:22 pm
segedunum
Also Big customers don’t make big descisions, quickly and without planning.
Translation:
The exodus away from Solaris never happened, and the few customers that Sun have left will never make a big decision to move away from Solaris or Sun without planning.
Microsoft and linux are facing the same slow decision making processes in enterprises.
Translation:
The few customers that Sun have left will stay with Sun because I happen to wishfully believe that these organisations have very slow and conservative decision making processes. Sun and Solaris are saved!
I take it from your cutting edge analysis above that Sun have a completely impossible task trying to convince all those people who moved away from Solaris and Sun to Linux and x86 to come back?
ROTFL.
2005-10-18 5:50 pm
Arun
The few customers that Sun have left will stay with Sun because I happen to wishfully believe that these organisations have very slow and conservative decision making processes. Sun and Solaris are saved!
You idiot. I was pointing to the fact that microsoft still has customers running windows 2000. And linux developers still need to maintatin linux 2.2.x.
I takes a contorted mind to not see the obvious.
ROTFL.
You can say that again. I have been doing that ever since I first say a post from you. Thanks for the good laugh needed it.
2005-10-18 9:03 pm
segedunum
You idiot. I was pointing to the fact that microsoft still has customers running windows 2000. And linux developers still need to maintatin linux 2.2.x.
Doesn’t say that at all. It could have been interpreted in a few ways, and the most obvious one was one appropriate to you. You could try actually saying what you mean. I really don’t know what you’re trying to defend to be honest.
I takes a contorted mind to not see the obvious.
Err, no it doesn’t. You’re just crap at English.
You can say that again. I have been doing that ever since I first say a post from you.
Errr, no it’s because you’re squirming in your seat right now. You’re attempts to shrug off stuff like Sun’s undeniably crap JES results or the fact that their financial results are no better are just non existent. That’s the crux of the matter.
Thanks for the good laugh needed it.
I’m glad you’re pretending you had a laugh. I on the other hand really did.
2005-10-18 5:17 pm
segedunum
Stick to the point.
I don’t think you can get more on the point than that, but of course you like saying that to get move matters from the real point and the wider issues. You’re also extremely selective of what you actually reply to. Sorry, doesn’t work with me.
the article was an endorsment
Lay off the acid please. The article was about Sun’s poor results, again, and the JES stuff is a footnote at the bottom. It was no endorsement of any kind. I’m sure Sun’s investors would like that spin on it also.
of a 43% gain in licenses.
43% of what, exactly? 15,000, 187,000, 620,000 in total. They’re pitiful figures.
Since JES licenses are subscription they tend to be constant revenue generators rather than onetime deals.
Even as constant revenue generators, compared to comparable systems and companies the figures are pitiful. By the way, how much revenue is generated by JES? Subscribers are mentioned by Sun, but the revenue seems to have been conveniently forgotten. That’s the sort of double-speak you have to see through in these things.
Also this is a new market for Sun ( and the industry) and a new way of buying software for customers, I expect the uptake to be slow.
Systems like JES are not a new market for anybody. The subscription nature of it for Sun is, however. From the non-existent take-up you can safely take that as a vote of no-confidence from customers.
Your naive views on how things work tell me you have no clue how enterprises work. You should stick to universities and not go into turf that is clearly out of your reach.
If you can’t extrapolate the crux of matters from several articles and sources then I’m afraid you can’t hide it.
BTW, most linux trolls have stopped mentioning the points you are regurgitating, owing to a shift in Sun’s strategies . You however seem to be stuck in a time bubble, where the linux zealots used to be a year ago.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned Sun troll or Solaris zealots anywhere in any comment I’ve made. If you simply don’t like what I’m saying, just say so. However, I’m afraid it’s not zealousy – hence the above comments.
One only needs to go through past Sun articles on OSnews to see that everything you are mentioning here is old linux zealot dogma that is outdated.
Sun zealots trying to put a non-existent positive spin on Sun’s position when every artcle, even those they link to, says otherwise? Err, no that’s never happened before :-). If you think what I’ve said is outdated and wrong feel free to itemise each comment I’ve made and reply. Filling paragraphs with the word zealot, is well, just filler.
Unfortunately, most linux zealots have wised up and moved on. But you remain trapped. everything you bring up has already happened and changed and has become obsolete.
Yada, yada, yada…..
It’s time you moved on and let smart, reasonable people discuss like adults.
Right. Lesson one for today children. When someone makes a comment you think is wrong then you can itemise their comments one by one and make a reasoned argument as to why they are wrong. Filling paragraphs with meangless bumf because you don’t like what the person is coming out with never works.
2005-10-18 5:46 pm
Arun
I don’t think you can get more on the point than that, but of course you like saying that to get move matters from the real point and the wider issues. You’re also extremely selective of what you actually reply to. Sorry, doesn’t work with me.
Do you really think I care what works for you? I would be happy if things didn’t work for you here and you leave.
43% of what, exactly? 15,000, 187,000, 620,000 in total. They’re pitiful figures.
Oh so you aren’t smart enough to do math! Well I guess your reading and comprehension skills are lacking too. RTFA.
Systems like JES are not a new market for anybody. The subscription nature of it for Sun is, however. From the non-existent take-up you can safely take that as a vote of no-confidence from customers.
JES is new for Sun and a product trying to gain a foothold in the market. From the data you can also concluded that the sbscription model is too new and customers are still evaluating the finabcial details or maybe theya re still tied up with other licenses and are evaluvating JES. The bottom lines is only fool would conclude that there is enough data to come to one conclusion. Are you a fool?
If you can’t extrapolate the crux of matters from several articles and sources then I’m afraid you can’t hide it.
Extrapolating wrong things always leads to wrong conclusions. You other miserable attempt at extrapolation is evidence of your inability to draw reasonable conclusions from data (ecspecially wrong/inapplicable data). Like some one else pointed out you are the kind to bring studies done in the 1930s on smoking and state that smoking isn’t harmful to ones health. You can extrapolate all you want from old inacurate data, doesn’t mean your conclusions will be valid in the present of the future.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned Sun troll or Solaris zealots anywhere in any comment I’ve made. If you simply don’t like what I’m saying, just say so. However, I’m afraid it’s not zealousy – hence the above comments.
No but it has been established that you are a linux troll trolling on Sun related articles. I don’t like what you are saying and niether do many of the others. Have you noticed not one person has supported a thing you have said in this thread.
BTW, since this is the second time you have used “Zealousy” as a word and you have for no apparent reason pointed out an obvious typo I have made to try and insult me in the past. I must correct you.. There is no word like zealousy in the English language.
Sun zealots trying to put a non-existent positive spin on Sun’s position when every artcle, even those they link to, says otherwise? Err, no that’s never happened before :-). If you think what I’ve said is outdated and wrong feel free to itemise each comment I’ve made and reply. Filling paragraphs with the word zealot, is well, just filler.
The point I was responding to was JES licenses and the article I posted supported the point I was making. The only person trying to spin anything is you. You try to spin old data as relevant in the past.
Yada, yada, yada…..
I see we have reached the limitations of your volcabulary.
Right. Lesson one for today children. When someone makes a comment you think is wrong then you can itemise their comments one by one and make a reasoned argument as to why they are wrong. Filling paragraphs with meangless bumf because you don’t like what the person is coming out with never works.
What? There is no rule in nettiquette or OSnews that ever comment must be itemized and responded to. Please stop what ever it is you smoking… the realworld is calling. On second thought please keep smoking what ever it is you are smoking and stay out of the realworld, it doesn’t need you.
It’s not that I don’t like what is comming out of you. What is comming out of you doesn’t make sense. I wasn’t the first or the only person to point this out. Get a clue.
Anyway, I have wasted more time than I would like going back and forth with you. Ciao.
2005-10-18 8:53 pm
segedunum
Oh so you aren’t smart enough to do math! Well I guess your reading and comprehension skills are lacking too. RTFA.
You haven’t been within a thousand miles of an enterprise, have you?
Like some one else pointed out you are the kind to bring studies done in the 1930s on smoking and state that smoking isn’t harmful to ones health. You can extrapolate all you want from old inacurate data, doesn’t mean your conclusions will be valid in the present of the future.
“I’ll talk bollocks to get off the beaten track.” It’s a well worn formula, and it doesn’t work on me.
I see we have reached the limitations of your volcabulary.
Sums up your comments. Again, you’re off into the wide blue yonder.
What? There is no rule in nettiquette or OSnews that ever comment must be itemized and responded to.
You seem to expect and demand it of other people. It should also be a part of that formal training you should have had.
What is comming out of you doesn’t make sense.
No, it does make sense but you don’t like it. Hence these meaningless posts which do not reply to any comment I’ve actually made.
Anyway, I have wasted more time than I would like going back and forth with you. Ciao.
Well I really appreciate you being the bigger person here. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
2005-10-18 11:35 pm
Arun
You seem to expect and demand it of other people. It should also be a part of that formal training you should have had.
I posted something that said I excpected people to post in some format. Now you are delusional.
No, it does make sense but you don’t like it. Hence these meaningless posts which do not reply to any comment I’ve actually made.
It only makes sense to you. But most others disgaree. You actually made meaningful comments!!!! Where??
Well I really appreciate you being the bigger person here. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Thanks.
2005-10-19 9:24 am
JonAnderson
You could try reading it and responding to each bit.
That was my point. You say a lot without saying
anything.
That’s not being clear. A customer needs to know where it fits in, and a SPARC customer needs to know why they should pick the more expensive option over the other. That’s where Sun’s dilemma continues to come up, and it’s what effectively killed stuff like Cobalt.
Huh? You want Sun to tell customers what to buy? Thats
a strange concept – do you work/deal with IBM a lot?
With Sun you now get a choice. Simple. The roadmaps
for hardware are very clear. Solaris runs on
everything sold with a common desktop, tools and
UI
Even with the limited sales they’ve had, Sun have admitted that sales of midrange x86 servers have affected the normal spin-off sales that Sun expect at, supposedly, the higher end – storage additions etc. Unless Sun address that in their business set up they are never going to be supportive of x86 in their product lines.
Can you reference please where Sun have said this. My
understanding is that X86 sales are going well (more
than doubling every quarter) and they are still no.1
in UNIX server shipments and the traditional
workstation market. Sun’s revenue problems are caused
by contraction in the high end and less than stellar
storage attach rates. The low and mid range are
selling well. It’s also interesting to see if the
high end will be bouyed by the release of IV+ which
has been pending for some time now. Niagara is also
going to shake a few things up (power/performance is
an order of magnitude up on most things)
Have a look at the software you get with, and supported, on an average Linux distribution. Then look at what comes with Solaris.
Thats not elaboration. What specifically are you
talking about.
Apart from selling x86 there have been no changes whatsoever. Sun have kidded themselves that they have changed whilst doing all the same things.
Really? JES, grids, Opensolaris – these aren’t changes?
One man’s facts are another’s general statements, and it’s doubtful whether many people round here would see anything as a fact. However, from the links provided around here, including those from others, and Sun’s bottom-line results it is reasonable to extrapolate from them what has actually happened. Mind you, many people simply don’t understand the concept of extrapolating useful information from data and evidence provided.
Theres extrapolation then there is conjecture and FUD.
Please post you analysis of the facts and evidence
which you allude to rather than just your
extrapolated conclusions.
btw, your not David are you?
I think Sun corrected pretty much all of the faults it had in its product line. Right now Sun is easily the most innovative company bringing the best value for both hardware and software. I don’t see a single reason they would fail. I wish the best of luck to Sun and I hope their business grows.
That’s a pretty hilarious statement considering Sun’s solutions consistently cost more to aquire and maintain than their competitors. Deal with Sun in person, then deal with IBM, Microsoft, HP, Dell, then you’ll understand why no one wants to deal with Sun. Aside from flat out lying to your face, they’ll refuse to take responsibility for anything, even on their OWN hardware.
Sun’s solutions consistently cost more to aquire and maintain than their competitors.
Certainly true. At least you can go to HP, Dell and others and easily aquire a server for s specific purpose, like you would pick up a television. Sun absolutely have to sell you a whole raft of crap, inluding support, subscriptions, add-on crap you don’t need. They also consistently have very archane hardware and software to make sure you have to pay for the support and a legion of Sun engineers to get anything done.
Aside from flat out lying to your face, they’ll refuse to take responsibility for anything, even on their OWN hardware.
I’m sorry to say I can vouch for that. If you tell Sun you can’t get something working, especially open source software, they will more than likely blame the open source project’s developers for creating bugs that make it unusable on Solaris. They simply won’t even look concerned, even when software works fine on Linux, BSD or even Windows. Open Solaris? Yer, whatever.
Oh please; ring up Dell and you’ll get a person who doesn’t understand English but puts on a bloody convincing American accent, even though I’m a New Zealand customer; HP is a painful maze of beaucracy; IBM will ram Global services down all your orifaces so hard, you’d swear that you’ve just been anal raped by a 20 inch black dildo!
As for SUN – I wanted to order a Ultra 20; I put in a quote at their website, no bastard got back to me about it! not even an email saying, “hey, I see you’ve made an inquiry; are you interested in taking this further?” – not, not even something that simple.
For all SUN knew, I could have been a multi-billion dollar company seeing how well I would be treated if I were to enquire as joe average – believe me, having done it before, I use that as a great berometre as to how much these companies appreciate their customers, regardless of how much their business may bring.
Oh please; ring up Dell and you’ll get a person who doesn’t understand English but puts on a bloody convincing American accent
If you’re a big enough customer you’ll get an account manager. If you’re not big enough, well, do some research so that you don’t need to helpdesk…… It’s the same for everyone.
IBM will ram Global services down all your orifaces so hard, you’d swear that you’ve just been anal raped by a 20 inch black dildo!
And yet I can still simply order machines from them. The Global Services stuff gets pushed, obviously, but it isn’t tied at the hip to the purchase that I’ve made.
As for SUN – I wanted to order a Ultra 20; I put in a quote at their website, no bastard got back to me about it! not even an email saying, “hey, I see you’ve made an inquiry; are you interested in taking this further?” – not, not even something that simple.
That’s where Sun fail. You can’t simply order one or a handful of machines to order. Sun, culturally, still have a very strange idea about how most machines get sold these days.
Sun has released a lot of new technology lately and has a whole lot coming up in the pipeline, but media seems to be surprisingly sceptical about anything coming out of Sun’s labs. I think it is the time to revise this biased coverage by the IT journalists. I like a write up on this from Paul Murphy (ZDNet):
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/index.php?p=430
Yes, I think myopia is a rather apt description.
What I find the most disturbing are management who say they know nothing about SUN’s Galaxy product line up; apparently they know the future of Microsoft products, but when it comes to investigating possible alternatives – alternatives that could save their company money, they seem to be ignorant.
I don’t know about you, but if I were higher up than those individuals, the temptation to fire that individual would be incredibly high – if that individual has such a myopic view on the IT world, where by the individual only ever investigates those making the biggest noise, then you may as well take over the job yourself.
As for SUN; what SUN need are more desktop applications – they need to work with big players like Adobe to bring their applications to the Solaris desktop – no use jumping around the stage praising the idea of thin client platforms when the damn platform itself has sweet bugger all software available for it – and this goes for Linux as well.
Regarding scepticism about Solaris x86 – its interesting how that they released the Linux version of their SUN Ray software (version 3.0) before their Solaris x86 version – you’d think with all the hype and promise that they’re now back behind Solaris x86, they would be put the Linux version on the back burner in favour of pushing the Solaris x86 out before the Linux version, as proof that they’re serious when it comes to supporting and developing products for the Solaris x86 environment.
Regarding scepticism about Solaris x86 – its interesting how that they released the Linux version of their SUN Ray software (version 3.0) before their Solaris x86 version – you’d think with all the hype and promise that they’re now back behind Solaris x86, they would be put the Linux version on the back burner in favour of pushing the Solaris x86 out before the Linux version, as proof that they’re serious when it comes to supporting and developing products for the Solaris x86 environment.
That doesn’t mean Sun is neglecting Solaris 10 x86, nor does it mean that Sun is not spending hundreds of millions on developing Solaris x86. It just means that Sun is listening to it’s customers, and if they want a Linux version of Sun Ray more than the Solaris x86, then Sun is going to privide it. In any case, I wouldn’t read too much into it.
I don’t know about you, but if I were higher up than those individuals, the temptation to fire that individual would be incredibly high – if that individual has such a myopic view on the IT world
Welcome to the world.
they need to work with big players like Adobe to bring their applications to the Solaris desktop – no use jumping around the stage praising the idea of thin client platforms when the damn platform itself has sweet bugger all software available for it – and this goes for Linux as well.
Solaris really does have sweet FA software available for it. All of the open source software, desktop and server, are designed and made to run for Linux first and the BSDs get next billing. That’s where the community support is, and it does matter. The number of problems people have running software on Solaris that runs fine on Linux and BSD is simply just too high. “Why bother when we can run it on Linux?” is something you here a lot of. I’m afraid getting a crap PDF viewer ported to your platform is a very small splash in a large ocean.
It all starts from getting the vast majority of software developer community support. If you don’t have that you might as well give up.
Regarding scepticism about Solaris x86 – its interesting how that they released the Linux version of their SUN Ray software (version 3.0) before their Solaris x86 version – you’d think with all the hype and promise that they’re now back behind Solaris x86
I get the impression Sun are having a really tough time explaining to people why they should use Solaris over anything else. When they’re selling x86 many people are asking for the Windows support they get from Dell or HP, and those that know they want a Unix-like OS choose Linux anyway. The only customers for x86 Solaris are existing Solaris customers.
FTA:
“Sun has to convince customers the Galaxies are worth the price. Smith, for example, said he wouldn’t consider Galaxy servers unless Sun improves its Microsoft support to the same level that HP, Dell and IBM offer–or offer a 50 percent lower price.”
I always love how one person just toss’ out a non-qualitative/quantitative figures.
1) Where is the support lacking.
2) I have worked with both Dell, IBM and (MS support) and I can say that I am not that impressed. Sorry no experience with HP.
3) How is that 50% calculate? What kind of support is this guy looking for?
PS: I also partially blame the media; they need a few attention grabbing lines in an article. Sensationalism sells.
PSS: I believe Sun is making a come back.
“What I find the most disturbing are management who say they know nothing about SUN’s Galaxy product line up; apparently they know the future of Microsoft products, but when it comes to investigating possible alternatives – alternatives that could save their company money, they seem to be ignorant.
I don’t know about you, but if I were higher up than those individuals, the temptation to fire that individual would be incredibly high”
I don’t find that at all disturbing. Rather, I find that good. Just because you find Sun as a possible alternative strategy, it doesn’t mean everyone else has to. When you make a purchase, do you always contactIBM, Sun, HP, Dell, Gateway, EMC, NetApp, RedHat, Microsoft, Cisco, Lucent, Nortel, Avaya, Juniper, Alcatel, Apple, etc? Are you up to date with HPs server line? How about Dells server line? If you have 80 Cisco routers and 160 Cisco switches running, are you trully going to think about migrating vendors? Truth is, you get to make a first impression once. Sun messed up big and lost its mindshare. Other vendors haven’t given their customers any reason to run back to Sun.
Once a company standardizes on a vendor, they will keep that vendor, study that vendors product line, and only glance at the market place to verify they have a competitive solution.
I don’t find that at all disturbing. Rather, I find that good. Just because you find Sun as a possible alternative strategy, it doesn’t mean everyone else has to. When you make a purchase, do you always contact IBM, Sun, HP, Dell, Gateway, EMC, NetApp, RedHat, Microsoft, Cisco, Lucent, Nortel, Avaya, Juniper, Alcatel, Apple, etc? Are you up to date with HPs server line? How about Dells server line? If you have 80 Cisco routers and 160 Cisco switches running, are you trully going to think about migrating vendors? Truth is, you get to make a first impression once. Sun messed up big and lost its mindshare. Other vendors haven’t given their customers any reason to run back to Sun.
Please; the guy didn’t even KNOW about the Galaxy servers – thats pretty pathetic; you’d think that when looking at possible vendors to supply hardware, the company would have cast the net as wide as possible to ensure that all possibilities have been assessed.
A company should always be going, “well, this is a good setup, but I wonder what the other alternatives offer” – not only to ensure that all possibilities are looked at, but to ensure that the current supplier doesn’t get too cosy in thinking that their current situation will last for ever – it would force their current supplier to be even MORE competitive.
Sun’s recent full-page advertisement that mentions a certain company that “rhymes with Hell” shows just how immature this organization’s management really is.
Childish advertisements like this one leave me wondering if Sun invests more money in marketing and corporate image than their own technology. I mean, how many times have we heard the name Bechtolsheim in the last few months? One would think he designed the whole system.
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/rejected/rhymes_magazine_page_LEres.PDF
I think Sun’s management lost interest in technology. Soon they will be selling shiny plastic boxes with basic PC hardware and market it as a supercomputer or “Professional UNIX Workstation”. About all they have left is brand name recognition, which they’re spending as fast as should be expected of a post-dot-com dot-com.
“Childish advertisements like this one leave me wondering if Sun invests more money in marketing and corporate image than their own technology.”
Yes, Sun has serious problems with both marketing and professionalism. Basically, their marketing is quite amaturish, and the blogs/sound bites from McNealy and Schwartz, while attracting attention, come off as childish, arrogant, silly, and unprofessional.
The large enterprise customer is still Sun’s bread and butter, and CTOs of large enterprises don’t take childish stuff very seriously, and this probably causes the CTOs to dismiss Sun in favor of a more profesional (at least, in appearence) vendor.
Too bad, because Sun does appear to be turning things around, is making some good moves (open sourcing Solaris, AMD servers, Java improvements, etc), and always does produce good technology.
And its any better than the childish rantings of the UNISYS + Microsoft combo, with their anti-UNIX site; or the fact that various bloggers on Microsoft host the anti-UNIX guide as if it were something to be proud of.
Sorry, childishness goes both ways, and it is used to grab peoples atttention, just like politicians saying something radical to get the attention of the public – what they say and actually DO are normally two different things.
> I mean, how many times have we heard the name: Bechtolsheim in the last few months?
> One would think he designed the whole system.
[As you may know, I work for Sun, but not in H/W design]
Of course, he didn’t design the whole system. He has a great team assembled. Andy has simply become emblematic of the team he leads– a very common phenomenon across many industries. But I was truly blown away the first time I heard Andy B. speak about the systems his team was building. It doesn’t take more than five minutes to realize that the guy isn’t a manager, and he isn’t a figurehead. He’s a humble, soft spoken engineer. He loves power supplies. He talks very, very fast. He gets animated when talking about finding the perfect fan, the best cooling design. That’s the kind of detail orientation which I think will help to differentiate these systems. I hope you get the chance to see him talk some time, even if you aren’t interesting in making purchases from Sun.
He loves power supplies. He talks very, very fast. He gets animated when talking about finding the perfect fan, the best cooling design. That’s the kind of detail orientation which I think will help to differentiate these systems.
In other words he has no practical sense whatsoever.
Me too. I love Sun’s technology and their engineers have always been top notch, I’m just frustrated by their management and marketing decisions.
Technically Sun is improving quickly and will be excellent competition for at least several more years if nothing changes. But if they wanted to they could be the best. Just like SGI and IBM and maybe even HP could be the best. None of them seems interested in doing it for the tech, tho. IBM won’t try to make a comodity PPC market. SGI won’t try to compete in the consumer gaming/graphics markets again. HP is just like Dell, but more professional about it. They’re all doing just fine, but Sun.. Sun could be better and we know it. Right now their tech is acceptable and prices are very nice. Now its just a matter of culture.
It just takes their management to become a little more humble and attempt to compete with quality and service and technology instead of stupid advertisements that make them look like they came late to the party and are trying to look “cool” by picking on the little guy. That’s not cool. They aren’t technically superior enough to do that and look and sound “cool” anymore. They shouldn’t even be concerned about Dell.
When they were “the dot in dotcom” they were “cool”, they had superior tech and the industry could afford it. Now things have changed and they either need to humble themselves and catch up before they go off bragging and bagging on the competition, or become another Dell. I don’t know what they want to do, but being another Dell isn’t very “cool”, IMO. Being Sun with Solaris having bash and bzip2 and sshd and Xorg and Xine and the GIMP and KDE and GNOME and Firefox and Thunderbird in every default install, having automated package management, excellent choice of services and support options, options to run Linux on an UltraSparc in a zone or as the base OS, etc. Now that would be cool. But will we ever see it from them? As long as they let McNealy and Schwartz run things I doubt it. We’d be more likely to see another Matrix parody with these two acting in place of Balmer and Gates.
This frustrates me because I watched them take the Ultra 2 and turn it into the Ultra 5. Stuff like that is just retarded. They got to be thinking with something other than their brain to make these kinds of decisions. Its like they don’t understand how these decisions affect brand name recognition and public perception of their quality. If their low-end systems are no better than a cheap PC what’s to stop their customers from just using cheap PCs? (that was 3 years ago) Now that their low-end systems ARE cheap PCs what reason do customers have to come back? A pretty case?
I want them to succeed despite my dislike of their management and business decisions. I just don’t want to see another Cobalt or iPlanet happen. I care more about what happened to those engineers than I ever will about Sun’s execs or stock price. And anticompetitive business practices are simply wrong (not to mention illegal). Don’t do them, period.
but who am I to write about this stuff.. im just a stupid sys admin..
This frustrates me because I watched them take the Ultra 2 and turn it into the Ultra 5. Stuff like that is just retarded. They got to be thinking with something other than their brain to make these kinds of decisions. Its like they don’t understand how these decisions affect brand name recognition and public perception of their quality.
The ultra 2 didn’t become the ultra 5. The Ultra 2 was an Ultraspace 1/II, sbus based machine. The ultra 5 a US II and PCI/UPA based machine. Totally different architectures. The ulra 5/10 were Sun’s largest selling desktops. I am not sure why you have a problem with it.
Is it becuase the ultra 5 was cheaper and had an IDE harddisk?
The ultra 60 was the dual cpu scsi based machine in the family ultra family and the ultra 2 replacement.
Ultraspace 1/11
can’t type… UltraSPARC I/II.
Ultra 5 was a good machine; things started to fall to pieces with their Blade 100/150 machines; over priced machines, underperforming, coupled with a crappy graphics card that could make a grown man cry – if they must have an integrated video card, PLEASE for the love of god, put it on a bus that has a decent level of bandwidth, and please, use a GPU that actually has some balls rather than the ancient ATI Rage XL which is used in the Blade 150!
Again, it would be nice for SUN to finally come out and publicly state where the Opteron fits into their vision; are they going to mothball SPARC workstations in favour of Opteron machines? if so, why not bloody well come out and say so? I would hardly say that is ‘strategically important’ information in regards to competition – atleast customers would know whether their investment into a SPARC workstation is worth it if in the long run Opteron is going to be its successor? or are SUN going to start shipping SPARC workstations using Fujitsu’s processors?
Again, it would be nice for SUN to finally come out and publicly state where the Opteron fits into their vision; are they going to mothball SPARC workstations in favour of Opteron machines? if so, why not bloody well come out and say so?
Well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? Low-end midrange servers have sold generally well (as you might expect), but it has crimped the revenue from their high-end stuff. Even then, x86 servers are a small proportion of their total sales. Because of that, you really have to question Sun’s commitment to x86, because if they really embrace it they’re simply going to have to accept significantly lower revenues for some time – at least until they start selling something.
They are simply in the wrong market, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, selling the wrong stuff if they want to maintain around $2.5 billion in revenue. It’s just not sustainable, because again, their higher end SPARC stuff is what is propping up the business (I hardly think they’re going to completely replace SPARC with Opteron) – and yet – they need to do something about those x86 machines that have eaten into them over the past five years. Unfortunately, they’re not going to out-Dell Dell, IBM or HP.
In reality, they have absolutely no choice but to really go down the x86 route, swallow the pride, let many customers replace SPARC with x86 and Opteron, and leave SPARC for the really high-end customers (as IBM do with PowerPC). To replace the massive drop in revenue and profits that would result, they need to look at more profitable markets like software and making sure a wide variety of software is supported and runs well on their systems. You look at the software support in Solaris compared with what you get in your average Linux distribution and you really have to have no brain to choose Solaris. However, that’s what is happening with Sun – customers are choosing Linux whenever they buy a machine from them. Consequently, that’s hurting their value-added ideas for boosting revenue through Solaris. Quite what those ideas are, and what they’re going to use to boost revenue is anybody’s guess.
Sun have everything they need to be an end-to-end hardware and software supplier and to reap some pretty large rewards. Unfortunately, they have simply now idea how to deal with x86 and Opteron, where to position it, how to generate income via other business areas or how to consider x86 as anything othen than a threat against the revenue SPARC generates. The need to dramatically shift the proportion of revenue in the areas they generate today, and they won’t be able to do it. A lot of those reasons are down to cultural and institutional inertia at Sun. As a whole they just can’t seem to accept the incredibly difficult decisions they’re going to have to make in order to remain viable. Simply selling an x86 line of servers is nowhere near enough.
In reality, they have absolutely no choice but to really go down the x86 route, swallow the pride, let many customers replace SPARC with x86 and Opteron, and leave SPARC for the really high-end customers (as IBM do with PowerPC).
IBM sells POWER at the high end (64-way pSeries)
and the low end:
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/openpower/hardware/710_browse…
HP sells Itanium at the high end (Integrity superdome)
and the low end:
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/entry_level/index.htm…
Sun sells SPARC at the high end (72 x Dual core E25k)
and the low end:
v120 etc. (to be replaced by Niagara).
And they all sell x86 to the low end.
Sun sells SPARC at the high end (72 x Dual core E25k)
and the low end:
v120 etc. (to be replaced by Niagara).
And they all sell x86 to the low end.
No actually, Sun are different, although I wouldn’t exactly say HP are selling many Itaniums. Sun’s large growth came over the years because they started selling SPARCS and Solaris to customers who aren’t your typical high-end customers (and that really happened during the dot com era). You notice IBM keeps Power well away from these customers and doesn’t mix the two (usually by making PowerPC prohibitively expensive). However, it certainly helps when you have a profitable x86 business as well ;-).
Fast forward to today. People running IBM’s Power really are customers with some serious money who believe they need what they have, so they keep using it and have no reason to change. Unfortunately, at Sun most of their revenue comes from customers who have found that they really do not need to be spending the amount they have done on their kit and software, so when they come to upgrade and refresh there are decisions to be made. It remains to be seen how much more Sun lose from that, but it’s a precarious situation to be in.
Hmmm. I really, really don’t understand what you are
saying and why you feel the need to express nebulous
conjecture so forcefully. Sun joined the X86 game late,
admittedly, but is now at least trying to do what it
does best (innovate) in that area. If you are in
the market for X86 systems then why not Galaxy servers
from Sun? I don’t understand how you are conveying the
development of a complete range of bespoke X86 systems
(systems) which offer compelling performance and
efficiency advanatages over the competition as a
‘questionable commitment’. Sun has managed to turn
itself into a one stop shop for hardware and software
(well, not if you want Windows) if you look. Also,
a lot of it’s other software (directory server etc.)
is available for other OS’es.
As for not being clear on Opteron, I find that laughable. Sun has been very clear. If you want Opteron, they will sell you Opteron. The new Galaxy systems developed by Sun are Opteron based. It’s a case of building a completely new product line, not
supplanting SPARC with Opteron or vice versa. Sun
see the Opteron line a complementing their existing
SPARC line, particularly with Solaris 10 and their
obvious experience with 64 bit computing.
And as for SPARC, again the road map is very, very clear. There will the first CMT servers (Niagara 1
based) this year, APL with Fujitsu in 2006-2007, ROCK
and Niagara 2 2007-2008. Sun is not abandoning SPARC,
it is just doing X86 as well. Sun is still no.1 in
UNIX sales (volume) and it’s X86 business is more
than doubling every quarter.
Can you elaborate more on your ‘Software availability’
comments. AFAIK, open source software runs just as
well on Solaris as it does on a linux distro. If
it’s commericial apps you are talking about then you
are not really talking linux anymore though are you?
Suns business model is changing (just look at the
changes over the last year, Solaris 10, blogs, opensolaris) – it’s just like all big corporations in
that it has the turning circle of an oil tanker.
If you have some specific facts rather than just general
statements then I would be happy to discuss them with you.
Hmmm. I really, really don’t understand what you are
saying and why you feel the need to express nebulous
conjecture so forcefully.
You could try reading it and responding to each bit.
Sun has been very clear. If you want Opteron, they will sell you Opteron.
That’s not being clear. A customer needs to know where it fits in, and a SPARC customer needs to know why they should pick the more expensive option over the other. That’s where Sun’s dilemma continues to come up, and it’s what effectively killed stuff like Cobalt.
It’s a case of building a completely new product line, not supplanting SPARC with Opteron or vice versa.
Even with the limited sales they’ve had, Sun have admitted that sales of midrange x86 servers have affected the normal spin-off sales that Sun expect at, supposedly, the higher end – storage additions etc. Unless Sun address that in their business set up they are never going to be supportive of x86 in their product lines.
Can you elaborate more on your ‘Software availability’ comments. AFAIK, open source software runs just as well on Solaris as it does on a linux distro.
Have a look at the software you get with, and supported, on an average Linux distribution. Then look at what comes with Solaris.
Suns business model is changing (just look at the
changes over the last year, Solaris 10, blogs, opensolaris)
Apart from selling x86 there have been no changes whatsoever. Sun have kidded themselves that they have changed whilst doing all the same things.
If you have some specific facts rather than just general statements
One man’s facts are another’s general statements, and it’s doubtful whether many people round here would see anything as a fact. However, from the links provided around here, including those from others, and Sun’s bottom-line results it is reasonable to extrapolate from them what has actually happened. Mind you, many people simply don’t understand the concept of extrapolating useful information from data and evidence provided.
1) What SUN need, if they were to become a ‘one stop shop’ would be a database; a good move would have been to buy out Sybase when they had the chance.
2) The arguement isn’t about SPARC vs. Opteron; it is about where Opteron fits into the equation, and why Opteron workstations and servers, when it comes to ISV support, why it is treated like the red headed step child of the family.
When are we going to see Applications, COMMERCIAL applications delivered to the Solaris x86 platform, for the workstation, and obviously for Solaris being used as a thin client platform.
Like I said in previous posts, its all very nice having sexy hardware, great performance and awesome management tools, but it doesn’t change the fact that if an end customer can’t get the software they require, all that hardware will simply be an over weight door stop as it will never solve the problem that the customer needs solving.
3) The Solaris x86 is smaller than the SPARC market, which is even smaller than the Windows market; SUN need to lower the cost barriers to entry; buy Mainsoft and make their development tools not only free of charge (and unsupported), do the same for their on development software – approach the large companies like Adobe, sit down and ask them, “how much will it cost to get you to port your applications to our platform? regarding support and maintanence, can we work out a joint venture?”
It is about proactive enticement of ISVs to Solaris, not just sitting back and saying, “if we build it, they will come” – sorry, OS2 was built, and no one came, BeOS was built and no one came, Linux has been built and no one has come. Sitting back and waiting isnt going to solve the problems – get out there and sell yourself.
4) I an questioning SPARC sales on the workstation front because I have seen NO updating of their low end workstations, namely their Blade 150 – how about a nice sexy Blade 150, PCIe expansion buses, low end Quadro video card with 64MB video memory, a nice UltraSPARC III 750Mhz processor, some DDR memory running at 400Mhz – throw 256MB of that on board; sell the whole lot for the current price of $1395, and it would be a great deal. So what is the hold up?
HP and IBM and SGI are Sun’s hardware competition, not Dell and their Wintel desktop SoHo systems.
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBases.asp?ProductLineId=431&Fam…
> Certainly true. At least you can go to HP, Dell and others and easily aquire a server for s specific purpose, like you would pick up a television. Sun absolutely have to sell you a whole raft of crap, inluding support, subscriptions, add-on crap you don’t need. They also consistently have very archane hardware and software to make sure you have to pay for the support and a legion of Sun engineers to get anything done.
Oh jeez, it looks like you have absolutely no clue whatsoever, but nevertheless you still decided to voice your ignorant opinion. Contrary to your ignorant drivel Sun is now the value leader compared with IBM, HP and even Dell. Sun has got the *cheapest* x86 gear out of all top tier vendors (Dell included). The same thing goes for RISC Unix gear, Sun comes out almost two times cheaper than either IBM or HP. If you look at software and OS licensing costs, Solaris/JES comes out an order of the magnitude cheaper than similar setup from MS for instance. Sun is the value leader right now and can save you some serious coin if you go with it.
Oh jeez, it looks like you have absolutely no clue whatsoever
You haven’t read the article then.
Contrary to your ignorant drivel Sun is now the value leader compared with IBM, HP and even Dell.
Value leader? Err, no. Depending on what day of the week it is and what that phrase actually means, in terms of value x86 machines Sun hasn’t got a snowball in hell’s chance of outselling HP, IBM or Dell in that area.
Value leader my arse. That really is tosh.
Sun has got the *cheapest* x86 gear out of all top tier vendors (Dell included).
Really. Would you like to factor in all the costs, even after you’ve made the purchase?
If you look at software and OS licensing costs, Solaris/JES comes out an order of the magnitude cheaper than similar setup from MS for instance.
Well, considering the absolute lack of software on JDS and JES (no one at all is buying JES), especially with JDS on Solaris, I hardly call it value for money. Solaris as a Unix workstation/desktop is just pure wishful thinking. That’s over now.
Sun is the value leader right now and can save you some serious coin if you go with it.
I hardly think anyone is going to back a sinking ship at this point, even if they can apparently save some money up front.
> no one at all is buying JES
Oh really?
What about General Motors:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1706144915;fp;16;fpid;…
…and General Electric?
biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050801/nym052.html
What about General Motors:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1706144915;fp;16;fpid;…..
…and General Electric?
biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050801/nym052.html
Please, do some reading around. General Motors and General Electric are the two dogsbodies Sun always wheel out for these things. Everyone has a partner they give free stuff and money to to make their stuff look good, right? Even Microsoft does it.
You only need to look at the sales of Sun’s JES system to see that, which have seriously dropped the anchor over the past five quarters, amounting to 15,000 this quarter. It’s just pointless keeping the thing up and running:
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/print/?TYPE=story&AT=39195191-39020363t-1000…
You only need to look at the sales of Sun’s JES system to see that, which have seriously dropped the anchor over the past five quarters, amounting to 15,000 this quarter. It’s just pointless keeping the thing up and running:
I would hardly call the quarter ending April “this quarter”. With somewhere around 1 million subscribers singed up in total, each paying somewhere around $100 per year, I can think of a few reasons to “keep the thing up and running”.
I would hardly call the quarter ending April “this quarter”.
It’s a quarter nevertheless.
With somewhere around 1 million subscribers singed up in total
Even 1 million is a pretty low figure.
How do you know they’re signed up paying customers and are still using it? Also, if you’d read around no one wants to pay $100 per employee. It’s a lame duck product price-wise. 15,000 new subscribers is absolutely pitiful and not justifiable with such a system labelled enterprise.
I can think of a few reasons to “keep the thing up and running”.
Well you haven’t listed those reasons, nor is the figure of 15,000 justifiable. Mind you, I find plenty of such wishful thinking amongst Sun people.
You only need to look at the sales of Sun’s JES system to see that, which have seriously dropped the anchor over the past five quarters, amounting to 15,000 this quarter. It’s just pointless keeping the thing up and running:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/27/sun_q4_2005/
There you are again more outdated data to prove a non existent point. The very next quarter JES sales were 187,000 licenses.
Well, I’m sure you wish it was a non-existant point.
It’s as little as makes no difference unfortunately, and I daresay that small boost has come about as a result of bundling with other things. It doesn’t make JES a revenue booster, which was the original point. 620,000 total subscriptions is just very poor, especially if Sun hopes to make this almost-free hardware now, subscriptions later thing work.
There you are again more outdated data to prove a non existent point.
The very next quarter JES sales were 187,000 licenses.