InfoWorld features three articles on Sun: “Sun Network: Welcome to the post-boom Sun“: Company hopes to bolster its enterprise worth at next week’s user conference. “Sun steals page from Microsoft’s playbook“: Grid, p-to-p software missing from Project Orion’s official launch. “Sun inches toward low-cost computing“: Company demos Oracle 10g database running on a cluster of its Intel-based servers. Also, McNealy, 48, who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, sat down last week with a group of Chronicle reporters and editors to discuss the challenges facing his company.
An Ocean of Sun Microsystem News
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Standford Univerity Network will always be around every big companies have its slow days, Java alone has another 5 to 10 years before its annilated by DOTNET.
Grid Computing using Industry-Standard Web Services
http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=4281
Sun and Oracle Together Continue to Drive Cost and Complexity Out of the Network
http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=4392
Oracle and Partners Work To Integrate Grid Offerings
http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=4405
GridIron Software Adds Former Cognos COO to Board As Chairman
http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=4419
http://www.gridironsoftware.com/
hhhmmm, thats an interesting view consideriding a growing portion of people doubt the popularity or windows in the future…
We have $5.7 billion of cash in the bank. We didn’t have that five years ago. We have generated positive cash flow from operations for 35 straight quarters.
Every claimed “loss” was nothing more than a formality. It is like when Microsoft wrote down a whole heap of assets, IIRC, WebTV and a few others, and thus, pushed them into “paper debt” when in fact, no money had changed hands.
SUN is “getting it”, Linux on the desktop, and Solaris x86 and SPARC on the servers. As for the x86 server competitiveness in terms of pricing, the come out bang on with its competition.
McNally says: “I have a hard time believing Microsoft will go out of business.”
The man has no vision I give MS ten years at best – even with 40 billion reserves.
McNally says: “I have a hard time believing Microsoft will go out of business.”
The man has no vision I give MS ten years at best – even with 40 billion reserves.
That is assuming that the various desktops stop bickering and start conforming to freedesktop.org specifications and bring about a unified HIG.
“The man has no vision I give MS ten years at best – even with 40 billion reserves.”
Jeezuz, you’ve got to be kidding me, right? MSFT is currently experiencing record-breaking growth rates (during a recession, I might add – see below) and has never been stronger in its history.
Microsoft Reports Fourth Quarter Earnings
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/jul03/07-17Q03-4Earni…
“Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $8.07 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2003, an 11 percent increase over revenue of $7.25 billion for the same period in the prior year…”
BTW, MSFT is sitting on $50 Billion in cash now, not $40 Billion – I guess you haven’t checked in the last few months…
McNeilly is smarter than you give him credit for. MSFT isn’t going out of business anytime soon.
“The man has no vision I give MS ten years at best – even with 40 billion reserves.”
Heh. I’m afraid that I’m gonna have to side with Gil Bates (IP: —.talisman-energy.com) on this one. Although I’m not exactly a Microsoft fan, I’m not delusional either. I don’t see them going away any time soon.
Sun’s future on the other hand, I am having a little more trouble really predicting. There are too many forces involved for my simple mind to see where that one is going to end up. It’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds anyway.
“…As for the x86 server competitiveness in terms of pricing, the come out bang on with its competition.”
From one of my links above…
“He [McNeilly] offered tangible evidence of the success of the Oracle-Sun relationship. Oracle products are supported across three Sun platforms — Solaris SPARC(R), Linux and Solaris x86. The entire Oracle stack will be supported on Solaris x86. Oracle Database 10g will be the first to be ported…”
More good news for Solaris x86 fans.
Granted he was interviewed via e-mail but his remarks in some cases seem a bit snappy and rude. It would have been nice if he’d have toned down some of his responses and keep them a bit more upbeat.
I dont see his tone as anymore rude than the questions he was asked…
Your ask rude questions, you get rude replys imho…
to go out of business.
Sunx/Scox is trying to hijack Linux. If these companies have their way, Linux as we now know it will be dead and gone.
Kiss up to lying thieving penguin-suit mcsqueally butt-hole, if you like. I will avoid sunw like the plague.
BTW: I have 25 experience in IT, and I am often consulted about purchasing decisions.
So you have 25 years of IT experience, that still does not make your conspiracy theory/conjecture less misplaced. Why would SUN want Linux to do well? They have spent huge amounts of money developing Solaris. Solaris is still ahead of Linux for now, SUN has to push Linux because of people that believe in Linux and really have no idea what Linux is (people that think Linux has no alternative or is the best OS on earth.)
The only reason Linux has done so well and enjoyed such wide adoption by the industry is because it was free, do you think Linux would even be a blip on the screen if Solaris x86 would have been open sourced three years ago? In 2 years Linux will just be another UNIX as far as businesses are concerned, price tag and all. In many cases, products cost just as much on Linux as they did on UNIX and companies love the warm comfortable feeling of paying for Linux. (RedHat and SuSE have figured this out with their enterprise server editions) So in the end, Linux won’t revolutionize UNIX, it will just switch two letters and add an “L”..UNIX –> L INUX. A UNIX by any other name, still smells the same.
Just another thought on the SCO/SUN conspiracy theory… It is always in your best interest to fund your enemy’s enemy, in this case SCO. You don’t think IBM would fund someone trying to tank Microsoft?
Personally, I think SUN needs to concentrate more on their own technology and less on pointing out every one elses problems, they have enough of their own.
“Jeezuz, you’ve got to be kidding me, right? MSFT is currently experiencing record-breaking growth rates (during a recession, I might add – see below) and has never been stronger in its history.”
The world is not static software companies come and go, great monopolies and empires collapse. I gave MS no more than 10 years – thats only seven years away from the best guesstimates on the singularity. Things should be happening pretty fast then, faster than Scott McNealy can conceive. Which is why I said he has no vision.
Everytime I read something McNealy says I just get stunned. He’s an amazing personality and I think what they show today is where other platforms will be in a couple of years.
They’ve definitely in No 1 slot and will surely continue to be. I’ve allways thought that you pay those extra dollars for Sun gear to be just in front of everyone else. As it seems, now you don’t even have to do that, just choose Sun and you got it!
” thats an interesting view consideriding a growing portion of people doubt the popularity or windows in the future…”
Yes, if Windows hasn’t already peaked, it soon will. Microsoft’s marketing department will need to do a lot of overtime to try to make up for the tons and tons of bad press lately. I even read this morning in Businessweek something to the effect of (paraphrasing) “it isn’t wise to keep all your eggs in one basket.” This is mainstream press. Even TV and radio news isn’t afraid anymore to say “Microsoft” when reporting a new widely-virulent worm or security hole in Windows. The public consciousness is turning around.
“Jeezuz, you’ve got to be kidding me, right? MSFT is currently experiencing record-breaking growth rates (during a recession, I might add – see below) and has never been stronger in its history.”
As a monopoly, they are probably finding ways to extract revenue from an industry that is nearly unanimously in deep trouble, right now. I also give Microsoft ten years to live.
They will eventually burn up whatever “karma” they have left, so that their only choices are to snuff out or reinvent themselves entirely. When Microsoft is finally gone, historians will write about them and compare them to past monopolies that came and went and left the world better off after they were gone.
“The world is not static software companies come and go, great monopolies and empires collapse. I gave MS no more than 10 years – thats only seven years away from the best guesstimates on the singularity. Things should be happening pretty fast then, faster than Scott McNealy can conceive. Which is why I said he has no vision.”
I don’t want to start a flame war or insult anyone… but if someone truly believes that Microsoft is going to go bankrupt because of Linux, they aren’t really thinking too straight. The simple fact is that Linux is an open technology for everyone to use, even Microsoft. The only thing it can do to any company is force it to compete.
The Dot in DotComCrash.
>>So you have 25 years of IT experience, that still does not make your conspiracy theory/conjecture less misplaced<<
FYI: Scox’s 10-Q just came out a few hours ago. Why don’t you take a look at it? Take a look at all the millions that Sunw is shoveling towards scox. Hate to say I told you so, but . . .
>>Why would SUN want Linux to do well?<<
Because Linux competes with Solaris on high end stuff now. Sun liked linux, when linux was just competing with msft on the desktop, and low-end servers. Now, ibm has beefed up linux big time, and put linux on high-end ibm servers. JFS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP on Linux is what scares sunw.
>>The only reason Linux has done so well and enjoyed such wide adoption by the industry is because it was free<<
Wrong. Enterprise level linux is far from free. Linux is being adopted because it does the job.
>>In many cases, products cost just as much on Linux as they did on UNIX and companies love the warm comfortable feeling of paying for Linux.<<
You have just contradicted yourself.
walterbyrd (IP: —.245.1.194.Dial1.Denver1.Level3.net) – Posted on 2003-09-16 01:25:02
>>So you have 25 years of IT experience, that still does not make your conspiracy theory/conjecture less misplaced<<
FYI: Scox’s 10-Q just came out a few hours ago. Why don’t you take a look at it? Take a look at all the millions that Sunw is shoveling towards scox. Hate to say I told you so, but . . .
They paid for the licensing of UnixWare IP so that they can improve their x86 version, both in terms of hardware support and improved x86 performance.
>>Why would SUN want Linux to do well?<<
Because Linux competes with Solaris on high end stuff now. Sun liked linux, when linux was just competing with msft on the desktop, and low-end servers. Now, ibm has beefed up linux big time, and put linux on high-end ibm servers. JFS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP on Linux is what scares sunw.
Linux isn’t a Solaris beater. Solaris in its current form on the x86 costs no more to support and maintain than Linux, the only difference is that Linux is the darling of the media, plain and simple. In a few years, when the hype dies down and people expect results, yes, linux will be there, however, people will also realise that it isn’t the silver bullet that the fanboys like to make it out as.
>>The only reason Linux has done so well and enjoyed such wide adoption by the industry is because it was free<<
Wrong. Enterprise level linux is far from free. Linux is being adopted because it does the job.
Enterprise Level Linux has been adopted because of the apparent “cheapness” of it. Go into any ISP and they’ll tell you why they use Linux for a large portion of their server farms, namely, because it is cheap NOT because it is superior.
It is also popular, as I said above, it is the darling of the media. If FreeBSD was hyped as much as Linux, we would have FreeBSD being in the server room instead of Linux.
Get used to it, this is yet another cycle, just like the UNIX -> Windows migration, people are now migrating from Windows -> Linux and in a few years time, there maybe some other flavour of the month.
>>In many cases, products cost just as much on Linux as they did on UNIX and companies love the warm comfortable feeling of paying for Linux.<<
You have just contradicted yourself.
How did he contridict himself? If Linux wasn’t being sold by Red Hat or SuSE would it be a viable replacement for UNIX? if that was the case, why isn’t FreeBSD a viable alternative to UNIX?
People like the fact that they’re “paying” for something, it for some reason gives them the warm fuzzies knowing that they’re paid for something even though it is just as good as a free product such as FreeBSD.
As for Solaris, you pay $20 for the download and you pay for a support contract which includes “support contract only” software patches, technical support etc etc. Meaning, the perceived “linux is cheaper” is just an invention of the media.
They make their money with expensive hardware and a proprietary brand of Unix (Solaris). x86/Linux is eating Sun’s lunch. Want more processing power? Scale out — not up! I give Sun five more years. They simply can’t compete against the onslaught of x86/Linux.
They make their money with expensive hardware and a proprietary brand of Unix (Solaris). x86/Linux is eating Sun’s lunch. Want more processing power? Scale out — not up! I give Sun five more years. They simply can’t compete against the onslaught of x86/Linux.
And still those who know say x86 can’t compete with Sun HW.
What is seen above is exactly what this mediahype is all about. I can’t believe you really write this and believe in it. Of course it might be irony but I doubt it.
I give sun a few more years, like 25 more years at least. They’re a brilliant company, very innovative and indeed reliable. Buying sun stuff is like buying an insurance, you know what you get and you can sleep well at night. People talk about Linux this and Linux that and Linux cheap. At the end of the day, have you heard anyway say that Sun suck? I think not, and that is what really counts…
If everything in this world would be about price, everyone would use Skoda as preferred choice of Car. Just like most people would choose FreeBSD or Linux for their systems. However, some people demand a little more and that’s where Sun comes to the arena. They are definitely the BMW of the computer industry.
>>They paid for the licensing of UnixWare IP so that they can improve their x86 version, both in terms of hardware support and improved x86 performance. <<
I hope you are not naive enough to actually believe that. Have you been following the scox case? Did you read the part about the warrants? Do you think it’s normal for a legitimate purchase to come with a boat load of warrants?
Have you noticed how often McNealy exactly parrots the words of scox’s McBride? Have you notice how McSquealy keeps screaming about buying sunw is the only safe legal path now?
And how interesting that sunw started shoveling money to scox at the exact same time as msft.
Get real. It’s 100% plainly obvious that sunw is in bed with scox and msft in this matter. And it’s an absolute disgrace. I fully intend to avoid this shameful company in the future, and I will encourage others to do so.
It makes you wonder why Sun has contributes so much to Gnome, OpenOffice, etc etc – possibly millions and millions of lines of code and millions of dollars. And yet Sun hates Linux and wants to destroy it! Amazing.
This is ntohign mroe than the sense of entitlement Open Source zealots have. It isn’t enough for them that Sun gives millions of lines of code and cash. They want it all, they want *everything* Sun has, for free, thank you, and are pissed off because Solaris is better than Linux. Well tough, stop moaning about it and spreading your stupid FUD, sod off an make linux as good – if you can. Until then, STFU.
>>It makes you wonder why Sun has contributes so much to Gnome, OpenOffice, etc etc – possibly millions and millions of lines of code and millions of dollars. And yet Sun hates Linux and wants to destroy it! Amazing. <<
No mystery at all. As I said earlier: “Sun liked linux, when linux was just competing with msft on the desktop, and low-end servers. Now, ibm has beefed up linux big time, and put linux on high-end ibm servers. JFS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP on Linux is what scares sunw. ”
>>pissed off because Solaris is better than Linux<<
100% wrong. We are pissed off because sunw *IS* supporting scox – that is an absolutely 100% verifiable fact. Sunw is, in fact, trying to hijack Linux. Again: notice McSquealy constantly screaming about Sunw having the only legal version of – WHICH IS A TOTAL LIE.
>>Well tough, stop moaning about it and spreading your stupid FUD<<
Yea, right. While sunw financially supports the greatest fud monger in business today: SCOX. And what do you call McSquealy’s constantly lying about all linux being illegal, except for sunw’s? Is that not trying to spread “fear, uncertainty and doubt” ?
Again, I have no problem with sunw’s products. But to anybody following the scox case: it is absolutely plainly obvious that sunw is completely 100% behind scox – and sunw is, in fact, a major part of the scam.
Look: You can’t say whether SCO have a case or not. Linux may or may not have stolen code from the Linux kernel. You can’t claim they haven’t until the case is over and the dust is settled (unless, that is, you are familiar with the origins of the entire linux kernel code, which is impossible given that they’ve only had a proper versioning control system a couple of years – something that could have guarded against this mess and been a useful help in the linux zealots purely political fight against SCO).
I’ve got no particular sympathy for linux users complaining about SCO’s tactics, given that those tactics are inherently similar to the tactics of linux against whoever they consider to be a threat (usually MS) – endless whining and nonsense.
Finally, get it through your thick skull that Sun is not “supporting SCO against linux”. Asides from the simple fact that “supporting linux” is NOT the clear moral imperative for every moral agent on Earth, there’s the fact Sun is, in fact, contracting services from SCO that are completely unrelated to Linux. They paid for the licensing fo the UnixWare IP for one of their own products, not to “support SCO” but to better their own products.
Do you have any sense of perspective at all? Can you realise that the entire universe doesn’t revolve around some retarded moral crusade of the linux zealots and that not everything in the world can be condemned as good or bad by what incidental effects it has on that utterly minor conflict? Hello? HELLO? Or am I just talking to another braindead zealot fool here?
Jesus Christ, go out, get a girlfriend, for God’s sake get a sense of perspective to help you understand that you can’t judge everything in the world and condemn people on the basis of goddamned linux’s interests.