Screw Sun [LWN.net]

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 30, 2003 20:45 UTC (Wed) by fx (guest, #12077)
In reply to: Screw Sun by walterbyrd
Parent article: Sun Sees Road To Prosperity Paved With Its Own Products (TechWeb)

Sorry, somebody had to say it. SUN is the most successful proprietary UNIX company ever.

You are just another Linux zealot, and should be treated as such.

(Log in to post comments)

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 30, 2003 20:58 UTC (Wed) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link]

But he is correct in that "Sun is another failing proprietary UNIX company". You can't argue with that.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 30, 2003 21:58 UTC (Wed) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Of course I can argue with that. Why would SUN be a failing company?
Their hardware scales up to 106 CPU's. 43.2 GBps sustained throughput on the system bus. Ever tried that on Intel?
Solaris is the #1 proprietary UNIX, bar none. The others are constantly playing catch-up.
Java is opening doors for them in all kinds of businesses.
Do you consider them "failing" because they are not profitable at the moment? If profit is the criterium: Red Hat has only recently had one or two slightly profitable quarters, before that they've only lost money while SUN made billions.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 30, 2003 22:32 UTC (Wed) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link]

Try this: Sun Micro's Q4 profits fall 80 percent

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 8:04 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

The economy is still in a very bad shape, that's hard to deny. Nevertheless SUN is not burning cash, is's running more or less break-even. Yes, SUN sells a lot less servers than they used to, but to conclude that SUN is a "failing company" is just ridicilous. Most Linux companies didn't even manage to make money during the heydays of the economy.

Low end always eats the high end

Posted Jul 31, 2003 11:19 UTC (Thu) by kfox (guest, #4767) [Link]

I work for a U.S. Fortune 100 company.
We've bought a lot of Sun equipment in
the past, but that's changing. For
example, CAD (design) and CAE (engineering)
workstations are being replaced with
Windows boxes or dual-boot Linux boxes.
Our file servers are being replaced by
service companies renting us storage.

I'd be really interested in hearing
if this is happening other places.

The only glimmer of hope I have that
we're not going to become all Windows
is IBM. Some of our application servers
may become Linux IBM servers.

Long term I think Microsoft is in trouble
from Free Software. What could be lower
than Linux? ;)

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 14:19 UTC (Thu) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link]

> economy is still in a very bad shape

Of the major hardware manufactures they have been one of the worst performers over that time period.

> conclude that SUN is a "failing company" is just ridicilous

No one concluded that SUN can't turn things around. If SUN really wants to turn things around they'll have to figure out a way to transition from their proprietary past to embrace Linux/OSS. Right now it seems they have a Jekyll/Hyde duel personality.

> Most Linux companies didn't even manage to make money during the heydays of the economy.

Apples and oranges.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 15:05 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

It's hard to compare SUN to the others. HP for example can hide it's UNIX business behind ink cartridges. If you'd compare HP's HP9000 server business to SUN you'd see very similar figures. IBM can hide behind services. As for SGI, they'd probably gone bust 10 years ago if the US defense department wasn't subsidizing them.
SUN (also just received a $50.000.000 subsidy BTW) is trying to move part of it's low-end business to Linux. Their V60x/V65x systems look nice. I'd definitely consider them: if anything goes wrong they support both the hardware and the software, so no fingerpointing.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 15:49 UTC (Thu) by sandy_pond (guest, #9734) [Link]

Ahh ... some of the other failing proprietary UNIX platforms. Like I said in another post: "Hopefully they'll continue to remember why UNIX failed to become the dominant platform it could have become. Unless they want to hand the remainder of the business computing market over to MS they will continue to play nice."

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:37 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Eeeh... proprietary UNIX *is* the dominant platform in the business computing market. It has been for a while and SUN is leading the pack.
I do think however MS should have been destroyed by the legal system and the fact that that hasn't happened might have serious consequences for UNIX or Linux in the long run.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 20:39 UTC (Thu) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

There are three companies who's primary business is proprietary UNIX: SCOX, SUNW, and SGI. Take a look at their finacial fundamentals, then you tell me.

IBM and HP are big UNIX companies, but IBM and HP are also very diversified.

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 2, 2003 10:56 UTC (Sat) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Tell you what in fact? I fail to see the point here.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 30, 2003 23:20 UTC (Wed) by JohnBell (subscriber, #12625) [Link]

*ahem*

http://www.sgi.com/servers/altix/

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 9:04 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Do you really think there's a company out there that would run, say a mission critical data warehouse on this platform given the fact that:

Itanium (or was it "Itanic"?) is immature, to say the least.
Linus would actually like to see Itanium fail.
Linux kernel developers claim Linux 2.4 scales reasonably well up to 16 CPU's. Linux 2.6 (not in production for at least another year) will probably extend that to 32 CPU's, but given the fact that almost nobody runs Linux on anything beyond 8 CPU's today, you've got be crazy to run your business on that. Compare that to Solaris running on 64 CPU's in production environments for more than 5 years now.
SGI has been building systems with hundreds of CPU's for ages, but real world performance takes a lot more than putting CPU's in box. For example, SGI claims sustained I/O throughput of more than 2GBps for the Altix. The SUN Fire 15K goes up to 21.6 GBps sustained I/0. Eat that.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 13:12 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

Hasn't linux been running on 32-cpu boxes since, oh, last century?

Doesn't it run now on 128-cpu boxes?

Haven't we recently had a LOT of improvements which give linux almost linear scaling as cpus are added?

As for i/o, surely that depends on what you want. A z900 only has *four* cpu's, but could probably eat a Sun Fire 15K for breakfast. In fact, didn't its predecessor the z800 eat some *seventy* Suns for breakfast at Telia recently?

If you buy an SGI, you want to crunch numbers. i/o is just willy-waving. Which is better, a truck or a porsche? Depends on whether you want to pull loads, or girls...

Cheers,
Wol

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 16:05 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Yes, Linux has been "running on 32 CPU's since last century", but this has very little meaning. How many people have actually seen such a system running? Does the kernel really scale linearly up to that many CPU's? How many hardware vendors support anything beyond 8 CPU's on Intel? AFAIK only IBM has recently gone up to 16, Red Hat doesn't support anything beyond 8. Things are indeed improving, but the fact remains that Linux kernel developers focus on 1-8 CPU systems. Scaling really well beyond that would probably even require a fork in kernel development.
So a z900 would eat a 15K for breakfast? That's just laughable. Got any figures to back that up?
So Telia replaced a bunch of old SUN boxes with a mainframe. What does that statement bring to the table? I know a company that recently migrated their Linux servers to NT. At the moment Telia's website seems to be happily running on Solaris (check telia.se or telia.dk on netcraft).
It's silly to scale vertically if you just want to crunch numbers. It's much cheaper to scale horizontally. Hell, that's why Beowulf is so popular and that's why nobody is buying these 500-way MIPS servers from SGI.
Talking about cars/girls, I used to be doing Linux consulting, but it was hard to find customers that were willing to pay some real money for Linux projects. I switched to HP-UX and Solaris consulting some time ago. Since then I drive a BMW.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 16:42 UTC (Thu) by JohnBell (subscriber, #12625) [Link]

This thread is hilarious. Now we're waving our BMWs (running WinCE, of all things) and aerobic intstructor girlfriends around to prove our arguments. We might as well throw Hitler into the mix and call it a day.

Obviously I have hit a sore spot, those damn Altix machines, how -dare- SGI make such a box? The audacity! The temerity! Why, it's gotten to the point where a fat cat Sun consultant can't fleece his customers for everything they have! Yes, my Sun brothers, these are dark days indeed... the evil Big Blue mainframes are beating us, Linux is beating us, SGI is beating us, Unilever is throwing us out the door and going all Linux, the Linux cluster manufacturers are getting all the scientific and Hollywood projects. Oh, how terrible! I may have to trade down to a Buick and start dating Flo down at the Waffle House!

LOL

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:28 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

I didn't start talking about cars, somebody else did that.
I'm not saying SGI should stop building the Altix, it's an interesting excercise. I'm just saying that it doesn't scale up to the levels a SUN Fire 15K can for real world workloads. I don't agree with SUN being "just another failing proprietary UNIX company" either.
If you're honestly thinking SGI is beating SUN I think you've been on Mars the past 10 years, so I can't wait to hear the stories.
I'm not just a SUN consultant. As I said in another comment, I've been doing Linux since 1994 and passed the RHCE exam. I've worked for several Linux companies, both as an employee and an independent consultant. I've even been reselling some Red Hat support contracts.
And it's true: there is very little money in Linux. Ask that to any Linux company struggling to survive (BTW, anybody remember what happened to VALinux ?). Companies do use Linux, but they do it mostly on low-end "edge" servers and in many cases they don't even bother to have a support contract. They consider it a "black box" OS.
Talking about waffles: how did you know I'm from Belgium?

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:59 UTC (Thu) by JohnBell (subscriber, #12625) [Link]

Mars was great, I highly recommend the skiing ;-).

Belgium, eh? Nice place. I enjoy Europe in general. I usually head for Germany (Bavaria) or Austria, however (family on my wife's side).

Just as another data point, I myself have made a killing working on Linux and Linux-based projects. I guess good work is where you find it. My current job is to wrangle a large Linux and FreeBSD farm, using things like Oracle 9i RAC on Linux, supporting multi-tier web apps, etc.

I do enjoy my job, very much, as I am sure you do yours. Let's not kid ourselves that there is no money to made in Linux, however. Especially supporting it. IBM has already proven that it can be done, and companies are scrambling madly for the technology. Linux is here to stay, and it's going to make a lot of people very well off.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 18:38 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

The day Linux starts powering some real databases in the various datacenters in Brussels I'll be going back to Linux. For the moment, the HP-UX/Solaris market is just infinitely bigger here. Even a dead-end OS like Tru64 is generating more business. Sad but true.
The company I work for now is migrating some NT web servers to Linux, but that's peanuts to what they've got running on HP-UX.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 18:33 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

It's not that a living can't be made by being a Linux specialist--it's just that certain assumptions have to be rethought (both on the specialist's end and their customers'.) The system of consultancy that works with proprietary software just doesn't work the same way with free software. It just takes some retooling of the process, and the market hasn't completely figured out how to exploit the new method yet.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 16:19 UTC (Thu) by JohnBell (subscriber, #12625) [Link]

Look, Sun equipment is great and all, but it's not the be all and end all of computing.

Don't look behind you, someone might be catching up faster than you think.

A -lot- faster.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:03 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Of course SUN is not the be all and end all of computing, but I wouldn't describe it as "another failing proprietay UNIX company" either.
For what it's worth I happen to be a RHCE and I've been using Linux since 1994. If Linux catches up with Solaris on a 64-way server tomorrow I'll have been waiting for 9 years. I wouldn't call that "fast".

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:49 UTC (Thu) by JohnBell (subscriber, #12625) [Link]

I'll admit to being born, just not yesterday.

I don't recall 15K systems being production ready and for sale in 1994. Solaris wasn't worth the powder it would take to blow it up in 1994, for that matter. If you wanted 64 bit computing at that time you were looking at Alpha systems from Digital. I know that for a fact, because I had to evaluate HP vs. Sun vs. Digital as part of the TAC 3 / TAC 4 transition proposals in our project for the Navy (SQQ-32).

Sun was, at best, a workstation vendor in 1994. Saying anything more than that is twisting history into very strange shapes.

As for Linux catching up to Solaris on 64-way sparcs, I believe David Miller has already shown that v2.4 can more than keep up to Solaris on equivalent equipment. Given that, it's always been about the applications, not the platform itself. As it always is when you're dropping multiple millions on a piece of equipment.

Screw Sun

Posted Jul 31, 2003 18:31 UTC (Thu) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Solaris was indeed in it's infancy in 1994, did I ever claim otherwise (SunOS was very mature at the time)? In the mean time it has become the #1 UNIX on the block, SUN has eaten the competition alive during the .com boom and Digital, the Alpha and HP's PA-RISC are meatballs.
I'm not twisting reality. SUN has indeed matured a lot since then, up to the point where they are now: the leading proprietary UNIX vendor, having so much cash on their hands they can give OpenOffice away for free so the Linux purists finally have a half decent office suite.
Linux on SUN Fire equipment... hm... I'd like to see what happens to Linux when I pull out a system board from a 4800 ...

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 1, 2003 4:00 UTC (Fri) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

I think you completely missed my point. I was commenting on Sun character. And take a look at Sun's financial fundamentals - they suck.

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 1, 2003 9:31 UTC (Fri) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

I think SUN has great character. Let's look at some facts:

SUN is a company that wants to "cooperate on standards and compete on implementation". This gives OSS all the breathing room it wants. Even better, it continously expands the ecosystem where OSS lives. Therefor SUN is Linux's natural ally, regardless of how McNealy feels about Linux.
Despite the fact that OSS is indeed eating away some of SUN's business at the low end of the market, SUN has made significant contributions to the OSS community. For example OpenOffice is the leading OSS office suite, opening many doors for Linux on the desktop. They contribute to GNOME and other important projects like Mozilla and Apache.
Today, SUN is a Red Hat and Suse reseller. That's a major leap for a company that swears by the merits of a "vertical stack".
About 10 years ago, when the rest of the world was turning to NT (IBM, HP, SGI and all the others) McNealy put his head on the table and said: "The day SUN does NT you can look for another CEO." The greatest enemy of OSS is also SUN's greatest enemy. All the more reason to be(come) friends.

These are just some examples. The average Linux troll really ought to think twice when he embarks on another SUN bashing session.

About SUN's "financial fundamentals" now. Compared to the grotesque amount of money they made during the dot com era, their profits are now virtually nil indeed. But, their financial fundamentals are sound: they have a positive cash flow, they've downscaled the company to the appropriate levels, they haven't done anything silly like swallowing a company virtually their own size and from the moment the economy bounces back they've got the #1 UNIX product portfolio lined up. The fact of the matter is that SUN's finanicials are infinitely better than, say IBM's situation during the eighties. Even many Linux companies today would love to be in SUN's financial shoes. If they're still around that is (remember the great cash incinerators like VALinux, Eazel, ...).

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 1, 2003 13:27 UTC (Fri) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

>>I think SUN has great character. Let's look at some facts<<

How about these facts? Sun claims to support OSS while secretly stabing the oss community in the back - and McSquealy gloating about it.

>>their profits are now virtually nil indeed. But, their financial fundamentals are sound<<

Profits? What profits? Looks to me like sunw lost 75 cents a share in the last four quarters. Fundamentals are sound? Here are the facts, read 'em and weap.

---------------------------
For the fiscal year ended 6/30/03, revenues declined 8% to $11.43 billion. Net loss totaled $2.38 billion, up from $587 million.

Earnings (ttm) -$0.75
Profit Margin (ttm) -20.8%
Operating Margin (ttm) -23.8%

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/s/sunw.html
---------------------------

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 2, 2003 7:53 UTC (Sat) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

You start by indicating you would present facts, but all you do is shout. Unless you bring some real evidence to the table your "stabing in the back" statement has no value.
You don't seem to understand the basics about financials:

Despite the fact that worldwide markets are still bearish, SUN's latest two quarters have been slightly profitable.
90% of the loss during their latest fiscal year is because of loss of value of the companies they acquired.
They've always had a positive cash flow.

Some of the above facts are indicators of bad economic times, non of it indicates a fundamentally bad financial situation. Of course, one has to look beyond the surface to see that.

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 2, 2003 13:23 UTC (Sat) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

The facts of the matter are well established. I certainly provided facts about Sun's financial fundamentals. McNealy certainly did make huge fud donations to scox, and - unlike msft - Sun tried to keep those donations secret for as long as possible. And in return for those FUD donations, SUN got a butt-load of SCO option for $1.83 each - scox's share price now $13.25. Note: getting a boat-load of options in not normal for a legitimate purchase. Also in return for fud donation, sunw linux has been blessed by scox (as if scox has the right to pronounce one version of linux and another version of linux illegal). And listen to McSquealy gloat about it:

<< "Don't touch open source software unless you have a team of intellectual property lawyers prepared to scour every single piece [of the open source code]. We offer indemnification, but many suppliers do not. A lot of companies are going to get very disappointed as we move forward. It will become a very challenging intellectual property issue," he told Sun's Technology Forum in St Andrews, Scotland, this week. >>

hp://www.infoconomy.com/pages/news-and-gossip/group83187.adp

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 2, 2003 18:23 UTC (Sat) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

So, in your view SUN engineered a secret plot to undermine Linux, they did all that using a Linux company (SCO) and McNealy convinced his friend Gates to get involved as well.
In the mean time SUN kept allocating resources to key OSS projects, put some great Linux servers (V60X and V65X) on the market and decided to become a Red Hat and Suse reseller.
LOL

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 2, 2003 18:52 UTC (Sat) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

Apparently you are still in denial. Face it, sunw is in bed with scox, it's a fact. I never said mcnealy convinced gates of anything.

Sunw likes to use oss as a stick to beat msft, sunw doesn't like it when ibm uses oss as a stick to beat sunw. That is why sunw is so on-again-off-again about oss.

sunw claims to be a great oss supporter, but the fact is that sunw is working hand-in-hand with scox. sunw may not have engineered the plot, but sunw was quick to jump in on it. sunw didn't talk to gates, but sunw doesn't mind their business partner -scox- bringing gates aboard. Sunw wants the support of the open source community, but sunw doesn't like competing against enterprise level linux.

Why do you think so many options for scox were transfered to sunw? How do you explain mcnealy's statements about only sunw products being "guarenteed legal" ?

I time to stop being a sunw religious zealot, and time to start looking at the facts:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/1024633.htm

Screw Sun

Posted Aug 2, 2003 19:58 UTC (Sat) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

So SUN has got SCO options. That's pretty smart thinking from McNealy. Apparently SCO owns a significant amount of UNIX copyrights. SCO can use these rights as a lever to make everybody's life miserable: SUN, IBM, HP, SGI and others all depend on SCO for these licenses. By becoming a (potential) SCO shareholder SCO's relative power over SUN decreases and SUN's power over the others increases. You could describe that as SUN and SCO being in bed. So what? Anything wrong with that? IMHO SUN was probably first to realise SCO was starting to capitalize on it's UNIX copyrights and was the first company to make the right move.
As UNIX is SUN's core business they want to keep as many options open as possible, so when SCO introduced a new UNIX licensing scheme earlier this year, SUN simply paid. Anything wrong with that?
When SCO went after IBM, McNealy obviously had a laugh. He moved quickly to take advantage of the situation by announcing SUN had all the appropriate licenses. That's not very nice, but hey, you don't survive two decades in IT just by being a nice guy.
Try to look at it this way. Right now there are two kinds of companies considering Linux: those who don't care about the SCO mess, and those who do care and might refrain from using Linux because of legal issues (no matter how ridiculous SCO's claims are). For those who don't care, nothing changes. Those who do have some concerns can now buy Linux systems from SUN and they don't need to worry about anything. So, looking at it this way, SUN is actually doing the Linux community another favour.
I'm not denying McNealy doesn't like Linux. Apparently the man has a decapitated penguin in his office. On the other hand market forces can't be ignored forever and SUN is slowly moving towards Linux.

fx: look towards the future

Posted Aug 2, 2003 19:15 UTC (Sat) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

64-bit processors from AMD, INTC, and Motorola, have just come out in the last year. Many enterprise level features for linux have also just come out in the last year. These 64-bit processors, and enterprise level features may not have all that dramatic an effect on sunw yet. But what about over the next few years? Fair to say this will eat into sunw's already diminishing market share?

Sunw products, like java and solaris, won't go away any time soon. Sunw may return to true profitability. So, okay, I may have overstated my case when I called sunw another failing unix company. But, is it fair to say that sunw won't see much dynamic growth any time soon?

Sun makes some good stuff, but so did DEC, so does SGI. Making good stuff is not enough to insure a good future.

Also, McNealy is a disgrace. In his desperation he is forging alliances with the scum of the IT world (scox). He is talking out of both sides of his mouth about oss. And he is making under-handed, often personal, attacks about his competition - boasting the he completed harvard while gate and ballmer dropped out (who cares?). I think sunw's hp-away away campain may have back-fired: hp issued a news release slamming sunw for their attacks. Sunw's "blue-away" campaign may back-fire also.

I don't know how much it affects sunw's future, but let's face it: mcnealy is a smarmy ass. Everything he says seems to be an arrogant, smug, mannar. He is constantly gloating and insulting, and generally just making an ass of himself.

fx: look towards the future

Posted Aug 2, 2003 20:31 UTC (Sat) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

There is still a very big gap between SUN material and anything available on Intel/AMD. It's not just the CPU, it's the entire design of the machine (RAS features for example). Of course it's not Linux's fault Intel based equipment generally sucks.
I think SUN's HP-away campaign is 100% on target. Alpha/Tru64 customers are confronted with a dead-end platform and all HP can suggest is a migration to PA-RISC, which is a dead-end as well, or a migration to Itanium which is an immature platform and another potential trainwreck. Compare that to Sparc/Solaris with over a decade of backward compatibility and a nice long roadmap into the future.
Yes, McNealy is arrogant.

fx: look towards the future

Posted Aug 3, 2003 7:13 UTC (Sun) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

Where do you see a diminishing SUN market share BTW ? Over the last couple of years SUN has done nothing but eating away market share from it's competitors.

fx: look towards the future

Posted Aug 3, 2003 14:38 UTC (Sun) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

From what I can see, sunw is barely holding it's own against HP and IBM. There is this article from a few days back:

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BCAD48FC8-1EBF-4496-AC0F-4FB0FC869E24%7D&siteid=google&dist=google

But, I was really discussing the threat from Linux, FreeBSD, and even MS-Windows. All of those OSes are growing, while all the proprietary UNIXes seem to be shinking.

fx: look towards the future

Posted Aug 4, 2003 14:00 UTC (Mon) by fx (guest, #12077) [Link]

SUN is doing quite well compared to HP and IBM. What you're looking at are server sales including Intel equipment. These numbers are not very meaningful. Of course there are a countless number of 1U or 2U low-end systems shipped running NT or Linux, but that's not SUN's real market.
There are numerous other recent articles that'll tell you SUN is holding quit well. What's more important: during the .com boom SUN has taken a very big chunk of the UNIX market away from IBM and HP.