_______ is dead?
_______ is dead?
Posted Oct 3, 2003 2:54 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284)In reply to: _______ is dead? by stevenj
Parent article: After Sun goes out (NewsForge)
People periodically say that such-and-such big company (usually Apple) is "dead" and they are almost invariably proved wrong.
As with DEC? Or Commodore? Or most of the Seven Dwarves?
What I find irritating about the article is that it assumes that the PC vendors have good strategies. HP's strategic direction is worrying. Dell have just shot their Linux strategy in the foot (they only support Red Hat Enterprise Linux, making their low-end servers considerably more expensive than the white box competition).
Posted Oct 3, 2003 10:34 UTC (Fri)
by djabsolut (guest, #12799)
[Link]
The comparison with Commodore (C=) is on the right track. C= had a good product for a while (the Am*ga), but miserably failed to innovate/develop it or place it in a coherent direction (anybody remember the CD32 debacle?).
It's as if they deliberately consigned themselves into a niche and never bothered to strike out from it;
C= became complacent, thinking that the niche will last forever.
_______ is dead?
Sun is doing the same - it's placing itself (whether deliberately or inadvertently) into the high-end server niche (and it is becoming a niche due the presure of Linux & Windoze utilizing the ever increasing horsepower of run-of-the-mill Intel processors). They keep on touting that Solaris on x86 is the best. What planet are they on? Why on earth would anybody want to pay them when Linux, or even the *BSD distros, are just as good or better?
The solution for Sun is a simple and an obvious one, yet they're living like they want to turn the clock back. They can keep on peddling their high-end servers, but that by itself is not enough. They will also have to focus their energies into making & selling Linux boxes and support contracts (a la Red Hat). It's called evolution: mutate or die.