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McNealy: Microsoft needs Sun to beat IBM and Red Hat (Register)

McNealy: Microsoft needs Sun to beat IBM and Red Hat (Register)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 0:43 UTC (Fri) by kornak (guest, #17589)
Parent article: McNealy: Microsoft needs Sun to beat IBM and Red Hat (Register)

I am so confused. SUN has done so many good and bad things lately. They have
some of the best engineers in the industry. Management should just shut up
and let the engineers do their thing. Anybody check out Looking Glass? It's
pretty slick...

http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/details.html

https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/

Maybe there's hope if such creativity still exists at SUN.

Now, if they could just add some Perl hooks into Looking Glass it would be
perfect!!


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Letting Sun be Sun...

Posted Oct 8, 2004 14:25 UTC (Fri) by sphealey (guest, #1028) [Link]

I am so confused. SUN has done so many good and bad things lately. They have some of the best engineers in the industry. Management should just shut up and let the engineers do their thing.
Problem is, Sun has no business model left. None. Linux and Intel are rapidly chewing up the low end, and there isn't enough room for Sun, HP, and IBM all in the midrange.

Sun lived for a long time on the DEC-style profit margins (some of which went to good engineering and support, some of which went to fat living for the bureaucracy) but those margins are gone forever. In a war among Sun, IBM, and HP I have to guess the outcome will be IBM and HP with Sun disappearing.

No matter what they do they are doomed. And the first thing you are taught in lifeguard training is: beware the drowning man - he will drag you under in his death struggle.

sPh

Letting Sun be Sun...

Posted Oct 8, 2004 15:24 UTC (Fri) by bruno (guest, #4387) [Link]

Yes, but there is more.

IBM and HP have an important consulting division, the consulting division
of Sun is a joke. IBM and HP sell really fast and big hardware, Sun is
years behind. IBM earns money selling software (Websphere, DB2...), Sun
sells software, but didn't earn money. IBM and HP can sacrifice some of
their low markets to Linux if they gain others, but for Sun, low and
midrange hardware markets are the only markets.

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