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The Faded Sun
jlowery writes "Robert X. Cringely seems to
think so. Forget the hardware side: what does this mean to the future of Java? Will there be enough incentive to continue to develop the language for whoever acquires Sun? Or will Java developers have to swallow hard and submit to the whims of the dark overlord? Maybe I'll switch to Mac development, after all."
I know Sun is losing money, but this article sounds subjective and trollish all the same. Anyone care to confirm the facts mentioned?
The Java specs are done by the Java comminity process, if Sun goes down (I really hope not and I will be one of the first to jump on their desktop machines) someobody else (possibly IBM) will take over Suns role in the JCP. There is too much investement especially on IBMs side to let it go.
Sun's just been overtaken by events. If anything, they ought to be an attractive buyout target for somebody (IBM, Apple). Solaris is still a good OS, Java's still a good technology.
I will say this, I think they're in better shape than SGI -- but that's not saying much.
I remember awhile back when those $1000 Sun workstations were released. One of the most cogent responses I saw was something to the extent of, four years ago, I'd have one on order already, now I just don't care.
You can have an amazing *nix workstation on PC hardware. If you want polish and flash, buy a Mac (he says as he types this on the iBook he just bought....)
They have just renewed a commitment to the Solaris operating system, which is no longer really viable from an economic standpoint. I know, I know, Solaris users love Solaris, but they don't love Solaris prices.
This statement is wrong. The cost of Solaris is not an issue. Solaris licenses are either free or cheap depending on what kind of hardware you own and where you got it. The real problem is in the cost of Sun's hardware as well as relative performance of UltraSPARC processors compared to the 32-bit x86 processors and certain 64-bit processors. Sun executives are still living in an imaginary world thinking that Sun's future is in selling large mega-bucks systems to the data centers completely ignoring the low-profit high-volume low-end side of the market.
I don't think it is that abstract though. .NET framework might not be that bad, or even very good.
Purely technical, the
The problem is not with the technical side of Microsoft, but the contracts and legal-issues associated with licensing their software.
Microsoft has a tendency to create contracts and agreements which bind you not only by hands and feet, but which will also "dictate" a predefined Microsoft-approved-certified-blahblah direction.
Ok, his first points are very valid and I will agree. Sun is in serious trouble. They're betting the company on N1. Apple won't buy them. Java wasn't the smoking gun.
/. folk, agree - they're not doing the right thing.
But to say that a merger with Sony would be better than Apple is just plain dumb. What have the two in common? Absolutely nothing. Sony has no interest in the server market - if they had they'd be there already. Furthermore, the technology that Sun pioneers has absolutely NOTHING to do with ANY Sony market.
He article further states that N1 puts Sun in direct competition with Microsoft and IBM. Uhh, hello, where you have been dude - they've been in competition for a long time now. If he is trying to draw comparison between N1 and a MS or IBM product then he should do so. From what I've read N1 has a LOT of potential. And while IBM is certainly a contender in the distributed-computing area, MS is definitely not.
Although Cringley was clearly drunk when he wrote this, he makes good points. And I would agree that N1 is certain to fail. Not because it won't perform, or not because Sun is actually using sales people to sell it, but because the market is rather slim. N1 doesn't benefit a small or medium sized company very much. Not nearly as much as it does the enterprise.
I don't know what Sun should be doing right now. But I, and I bet a lot of you
Perhaps the problem is that the distinctions in the computer market have altered and Sun has no place for its hardware? It used to be that there were servers/mainframes, workstations and then puny PCs. PCs have grown in capability, however, essentially absorbing the workstation definition and market, leaving Sun with little room in that segment. IBM chose to make servers the core of its business, while Microsoft and Intel dominate the PC market.
.NET and the hype machine is in full force - and still Sun has failed, to my knowledge, to respond.
For quite a while I've been wondering exactly what Sun is up to. They calmly sat back while people kept repeating the mantra that Java is slow (even though it isn't; JIT-ted code and better GUI techniques improve performance markedly), allowing it to lose mindshare to competing products. Now Microsoft has shipped
Even if Cringley's article is wildly inaccurate, it does reflect the concerns and questions of a number of people, particularly those who do not use Java as part of their job. What the hell is Sun doing?
It is a shame what's happening to Sun, because it's indicative of what is happening to computing in general. Sun's old machines were solid, powerful machines that just worked. I used a sparcstation 5 up until a year ago at work, and while it was dog slow, it still worked all the time, because it was built at a time and for a market that expected that computers *worked*.
Now, thanks to the whole IBM PC/Windows thing, when a computer crashes, people say "oh, that's ok, that's what computers do" and hit reset. I'm not saying I'd rather have a blade100 on my desk than a wintel box, but I wish that my winel box had some of the engineering quality from Sun.
With so much of Oracle's software related to Java and their excellent JDeveloper Java development suite, it would be wise for Oracle to acquire Sun if they can.
Imagine, Linux/Java/Oracle Vs Windows/.NET/SQL Server and either combination could run on similar hardware....
Did you miss out this post and all the replies?
IBM has a lot invested in Java. It's become their common development platform for their various OS's they run from Linux on up. Native code for the heavy-duty stuff, Java for everything else. Probably saves them billions a year.
I think if Sun burns up (and with numbers like $2 billion in losses, it could happen overnight, look at Enron/WorldCom... who knows what sort of tricks are being played with the books) IBM would be the first in line to grab Java.
Just my best guess.
-Russ
Me
>> Anyone care to confirm the facts mentioned?
... I'm sorry to say this, but Robert X. Cringely seems to lack the foundation of technical journalist. Who knows he's the one who'll be gone in five (or less than five years)?
This is a troll like you said; there are too many things that I can disclaim, but I just list a couple as follows.
> Sun has no real technical leadership. (from the article)
Just to name a few... Billy Joy? James Gosling? John Gage? Aren't they three of greatest leaders in IT (and science in general) in our generation?
> Sun did not invent the engineering workstation, but they certainly perfected it. (from the article)
Sometimes, only perfection (or 90% complete) can claim invention. For example, Apple did not create GUI (Xerox should claim that right), but they perfected it; they have a right to say that Apple invented GUI. In that sense, Sun invented workstation.
> At that rate, the company has at most five years to live. (from the article)
No one can tell what's going to happen in this arena. You've got "only" five years, so you are dead. That sounds too premature. Anything can happen in five years in IT industry. As the author claims, Sun might be gone; on the other hand, Sun might be ruling the world by then.
I can point out many more, but one of things that the author Robert X. Cringely seems to misunderstand is that Microsoft, IBM, and Sun are doing the same thing and competing in exactly the same market, which is not true. Also it is important to note that Sun is a technology company. Companies like Microsoft are becoming a technology company (and some never will be). Looking at PC sales and saying "Oh, Sun is doing horrible in this environment, they are going Sayonara" is premature and
I must agree that Sun is really in trouble. Solaris is not the blame but the hardware price and performance is.
I work in a semiconductors startup. Two years ago when the company was founded Sun hardware was the default when it came to choosing CAD servers. Sun even had a nice discount program for startups.
These days we can get a fast Pentium4 or Athlon (running Linux) to do the same work for a lot less $$$. Maintenance is also much cheaper.
All the big CAD software vendors now support i386 Linux and the platform is stable and FAST!
In fact, the only reason Sun hardware is still worth keeping around is because it supports large (>4GB) memory. When somebody finds a way around that (AMD Hammer comes to mind) Sun will loose its last asset.
It's a pitty, cause Sun is a good enigneering company. They invest heavily in research and are a major source of innovation.
They just can't keep up with the falling prices of that huge i386 market. No one can (not even Intel's own Itanic!)
Utter horseshit. Everyone lost sales last year: IBM, HP/DECompaq, SGI, Fujitsu-Siemens, Bull, NEC... everyone. Sun lost fewer sales than the other major players, so they picked up marketshare. They hemmorhaged money because of spotty buisiness practices from the dot-com era comming up to catch them, but as Cringley says, they've got another five years to get that sorted out.
Sun's transformation from a king of the workstation vendor into a server powerhouse that only IBM has any real hope of competing with is nothing short of phenomenal. If it looks like Linux is going to kill the proprietary Unix market, then Sun will go Linux... they've made similar moves in the past. Sun switched their entire installed base from the BSD-derived SunOS to the SVR4 flavored Solaris, no small feat at the time. A switch to Linux will be a snap, and yes, Sun will still charge you as much for your Sun-branded Linux as they do for Solaris, and get it from satisfied CIOs, along with fat service contracts.
Sun is never the first to market. Sun is never the ideal solution. Sun never offers the highest performance. Sun is never the cheapest option. Sun doesn't offer the best service in the industry. But they come "close enough" on so many fronts, they're an unbeatable market force. Add in Java, which rules enterprise computing like no technology since COBOL, and Sun ain't going nowhere.
Apple bled billions in the '90s, but they rebounded. McNealy's at least as smart as Jobs, and his marketing instincts are almost as honed. Sun has replaced IBM, and even Windows, in the hearts and minds of every serious CIO and VAR. Give it a year for either the economy to have rebounded, or for Sun to have staunched the bleeding on its own with austerity measures and something innovative. This is the company who managed to launch a line of workstations at the height of the NT onslaught in the Workstation market, and managed to make a mint with them. (The Ultra5 and Ultra10.) They aren't out of tricks yet.
Tho it would be nice if they put the screws to Fujitsu-Siemens to get access to their SPARC design... call it "SuperhyperultraSPARC" or "BadAssSPARC" or "TotallyAwesomeSPARC" or somesuch, and use it to hold the Itanium/POWER dogs at bay while they ready the UltraV.
SoupIsGood Food
A couple of people have made the point that Sony and Sun have virtually nothing in common. I beg to differ. They have alot in common, i.e. a strong desire to get rich. But, for a non-flipant answer, heres a serious one.
Japan does not have the same anti-trustor trade laws we have in the US, therefore massive organizations of businesses, called kiretsu(sic?) exist. For an American equivalent, think Microsoft owning/merging with GM, McDonalds, and Disney. Essentially, the companies inside the organization are spread out over a very diverse area. This is to insure that when one industry, say automobiles, has a slump, others industries undergoing a boom, like consumer electronics or a theme park, can help support the ailing businesses with capital. Basically, all of these companies work together for a singular goal: the almighty dollar (or yen).
Sony, being a member, and a leading member no doubt, of their organization, would have some very good reasons to buy Sun, above and beyond the diversification reason listed above.
Firstly, the server side of the business. Tech geeks know and respect Sun's servers, even if they aren't always their first choice. Also, Sony has immense brand name recognition. This can be useful when management is trying to decide what hardware to buy, and since the atypical pointy-haired bosses may know jack about linux, NT, UNIX, they will recognize Sony.
Secondly is the consumer electronics side of the business, specifically handheld devices, like PDAs, MP3 players, etc. Remember when Java first got noticed in the mainstream, there was tons of talk about how soon we'd be driving cars with a Java OS inside, dialing phones run by Java, flushing toilets run by Java, etc., etc., etc. Sony may be looking at the possibility of aquiring a company with at least some experience, and a lot of potential, in writing and implementing embedded software for Cell phones, PDAs and whatnot. Microsoft does it, Linux sure as hell does it, Apple does it, so why not Sun? Sony might be thinking.
Finally, Sun is cheaper than hell right now. Like the article says, $3.00 bucks a share is an incredibly attractive buyout price for a company Sony's size, and at that cheap a price, a risk could be taken with the company, and a posible failure, while bad, would barely be a blip on the corporate accounting tables.
So, no matter what your stance, you have to admit that, when the facts are reviewed, the idea is, at the very least, interesting.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
To get a 100 disk fiber Disk array, connected to a 8 way box. One that doesn't throw a drive or a controller or a cpu every other week. Sun Solaris sucks ass, Debian GNU/Linux is the One True OS, but the hardware works. We have tons of linux boxes, but they all suffer from running on x86 hardware. Whether we buy it part by part and build it ourselves, buy it from Dell or HP/compaq they just fall apart.
We've got several Dells with RAID drives, 4 CPUs, never a linux crash (ala BSOD), but we get on average 1 major hardware crash every year on EACH machine due to hardware going south.
We also have similarly equipt sun servers (that suffer from an even higher load). We're talking about 17 SUN 4500's, the ONLY failure over the last four years was due to a fiber controller failing, it was a dual controller, but a firmware mismatch caused the 2nd controller to not come on line properly. 1 outage and it was our fault anyway, if we had upgraded the firmware like we're supposed to it would have never happened.
Sun might need to get out of the cheapo 1U, $2000 "server" market and clean house Concentrate on selling expensive, quality hardware to people who can afford them. If whatever your sever is doing generates real money buy sun you won't regret it.
Looking at the current Java-based code developed since 1995, it can be taken for granted that Java will stay. There are huge investments in running Java applications at banks, insurances, e-business companies (IBM). Just like Cobol, Java will probably loose market share while the C#/.NET environment will rise. That's only fair - now there is a modern alternative besides Java.
And I don't understand why people are always complaining only about runtime performance. Java development speed is fast. Java code is robust. Java libraries are so good they are 1:1 ported to C# (JUnit, log4j). Java IDE's are incredible productive. Java can be used over all tiers (JSP, Servlets, Beans, Enterprise Beans).
Even with performance 50% lower than "native" C/C++ code, it probably performs better economically than any other technology.
So, still, Java is the best for mid-sized to large projects (besides C#/.NET).
You can't (well you can, but I'd rather drill a hole in my hand) script an enterprise app in PHP. Yah, PHP is great for a scripting language, but it's just that.
:)
I grow tired of everyone predicting or shouting for one thing over the other - there always has to be just one. Yah, right.
PHP is great for the non-ASP/*nix programmer. ASP (and I'm choking a little here when I say this) is great for the m$ programmer. C is good. Java is good. Jeeze, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I'd much rather have a CHOICE when using a particular technology than not.
The Java VM exists for a reason. Just because PHP doesn't have one doesn't mean much. They're both written in C too - so what!
In the end, sure the user wants the most responsive app. But I'll say this, get a big project and try to have multiple devlopers script it and it'll probably die on the vine. You can do just as bad of a job with JSP (and believe me, I've seen it) but there are some really great frameworks out there that help fix problems like this.
Plus, with PHP and the like, they're tied to HTTP. It wouldn't be a very good idea to script a server app in PHP with multiple different types of clients accessing it. It's possible, but I can't see someone writing a Win or Linux native client that accesses a PHP server app. Java works well with the web, but is not build solely for it.
Plus there are other things, if you wanna compare (I don't know even why I'm doing this). There is no PHP message queueing, no or little 'enterprise features', no 'compile PHP to a console application', no PHP 'enterprise' transactional components, etc. Anyway, anyone who's ever had to really use both knows what I'm talkin about.
And besides that, for me, *nix and network programming are still like wide open spaces to me. There are still plenty of things to discover out on the Montana plains and I'm not gonna get all bent outta shape about a rock not being a tree and a tree not being a clear blue sky.
The segway; Sun is all about proprietary (13W3, sbus, solaris) - this is why they may make a great pairing with Sony. Sun could be to Sony, what the Xserve market is to Apple. It could be Sony's opportunity to be recognized in the corporate world. Apple and Sony share the exact same "creative market" - those don't buy Apple in the market, tend to want Sony A) brand, B )it's the same brand as their other equipment, C) Looks, D) Integration & Media nature of their product
Conversely, I have always thought Sun would be a good merge with Apple. I think Sun would be best getting away from almost TOTAL proprietary, allow Apple's genius to help with development of Java and further integrate it in to Unix/BSD, and give Apple some of the best blade technology in the industry, and possibly a stronger development partner for RISC processors.
I had even come up with a good slogan for a Steve Jobs Keynote; "Every Apple Needs a Little Sun To Grow!"
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Sun do have serious trouble in the troubled economy. They definitely need money to survive. And they need more to safeguard Java (licences) because what they get from Java is less than what they invest.
Java has future and will stay. Big companies like IBM, Oracle invested a lot in Java because they did see that Java has future and will stay for long time.
I don't thing Apple or Sony will merge with Sun, because IBM and Oracle will not stay calm as they want Java, a conclusion arrived by looking at what they invested in Java softwares.
Five years is not far off and at the same time it is not as short that Sun cannot do anything. Sun do have a chance if it wants to change. Sun should look for the growing markets ( Desktops, Notebooks, Low end Servers ). Does Sun have money to start on a new market? Hope so.
The conclusion, if the same situation continues, Java will stay, Java will change hands, Sun will merge or will be bought. And also, Sun still has time to revive.
- Jay
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This is correct. Fortunately, that isn't what's happening. What's happening is that MS is being forced to honor terms of a *contract* that no one forced them to enter into.
.
They signed a contract, they tried to weasel the terms and got bitch slapped, so they tried to "nullify" the contract. .
and got bitch slapped.
If they didn't *want* Java as a default part of the Windows world all they had to do was refrain from signing the contract, that *they* took the initiative in pursuing, guarunteeing it would be.
It's a pretty simple issue really.
KFG
Sun is already trying to move into a different market: Desktop computing. They still have this powerful card called "OpenOffice", they are big GNOME fans. They have an excelent guide for porting software from Solaris to Linux.
Looks like they're trying to make it really easy to push for a move from SPARC/Solaris/CDE to ix86/Linux/GNOME.
What a load of nonescense! On paper yes Sun did come out $2 billion down last year. Want to know why? Four(?) companies it had previously bought which it had to write down its valuations of. Take a look at its accounts, it took a charge of $2.125 billion for "Impairment of goodwill and other intangable assets". Read this to mean "some accountancy stuff that doesn't mean diddly to the companies operations". Thats it, period. It was a brave, forthright financial disclosure it could have put off for a couple of years, or dripped out, but it wanted to do a clear-out, get all the bad news out in a one-er and be able to post figures uncontaminated by that stuff from now on. The actual operations made money, I think it was around $10 million. Granted for a company of its size this isn't much, but this is the figure to look at. They increased cash reserves, its only the companies paper valuation that dropped $2 billion, they didn't actually loose any money. According to the basis of Cringely prediction, Sun continuing on exactly the same path, the market doesn't get any better, etc, etc, in 5 years time it will only have $50 million more in the bank than today. Does someone want to explain to me how this means its going to fold? IANAFA (I am not a financial analyst) but that sounds like bullshit.
Sun has a huge cash reserve, $1.5 billion, another $1 billion in stocks and short term securities, and other bits and pieces. Add all the assets together, excluding plant, 'intangables' and the like and its got $8.3 billion it could pull together if necessary. Oh, and it has no debt at all, period.
Cringley strikes me as a very poor journalist, he didn't even take the time to look into the basic details of the recent accounts, or if he did he was incapable of understanding them. Why does anyone bother reading this cretins opinions, he does seem to have a track record of being unnecessarily sensationalist and outstandingly wrong.
Disclaimer - I work for Sun as an engineer. Whilst I can't say too much on this topic I would say this year is looking pretty good thank you very much. The views expressed here are my personal opinions.
Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.
Sun products are not any *special* improvement of Sony products and vice versa. Sony products usually do not need any servers, but when they do - other cheaper and still good servers around (read: Linux). And of course, who needs any Sony products in the server room?
Apple has already been bound to IBM and Motorlla through PowerPC. Typical Mac applications (graphics) doesn't require big database and internet servers, where Sun is still strong. In fact, typical Mac users are geeks (it was so hard to avoid typing "jerks") and not corporate users. But if otherwise would be - IBM servers are not far away.
Both Sony and Apple has no traditins of picking up failing former giants and digesting their dead meat.
But there is other company, which has very long tradition of squizing the last juice from the dying things: HP. They just bought Compaq who bought DEC. Why do they do that? Because their business model is based on support, specifically on supporting customers with legacy system, who doesn't have (almost) any other choice to get that support of their already dead platforms. But that business model requires new victims every few years.
Besides dying expensive hardware, Sun and HP has another in common: system management. Both have good ideas, both did not implement it well, at least as good as IBM did. So, by combining system management platforms from both, Sun and HP can make them a stronger competitor to IBM on that market segment.
As for Java... Sun will let HP to suck the last possible money from IBM on Java licensing. Of course untill IBM will drop Java finally and move to Python (I would love to see Eclipse for Python!). And I won't be surpised to hear that HP or Sun or merged HP-Sun, will buy Borland together with Together :)
Personally, I can bet that if in coming year we won't hear about upcoming plans of HP-Sun aquisition, then we shall hear about HP planning to acquire SGI. But any speculation about that merge would be a kind of offtopic here.
Less is more !
Even Java is becoming superfluous. Java is the Dan Marino of software. Just as the former Dolphins quarterback, Java affected the world so much that history cannot be written without its mention. But nonetheless, neither Java nor Dan ever won the big one.
Blasphemy! I saw Mr. McNealy speak at JavaOne last year, and as he remarked that Java had now become the most widely used programming language, he put up a slide saying "Java Won!". It's everywhere! How can this fool say that it never "won the big one"? Since 1.4 was released, all the objections to its use have been made irrelevant: speed (thank you, HotSpot), user interface (Swing now really does look and feel the same on all platforms)... well, I can't really think of any other objections, anyway. Bottom line: be as negative as you want about Sun, but Java is not in trouble, it rules the world, from cell phones to mainframes!
Not only too much IBM investment, there is too much IBM CUSTOMER investment. Now that the big financial institutions have implemented Java apps it will never die. Look at COBOL.
let's start with the facts.
He says the battle will be lost to cheap stations that use AMD and Intel hardware.
No sane company at this point is going to put mission critical applications on Intel hardware unless it scales horizontally amazingly well. weblayers - yes. application servers - yes. big databases that are read-write? NO.
And who is going to provide the 1-hour onsite response time that comes with Sun's Platinum service for those flocking to cheap hardware?
Sun's legacy servers (4500, 6500, e10k) were pretty amazing, but had some faults (Ecache failures, lack of true power redundancy, etc). But Sun's new line of servers is truly amazing. The 4800, 6800, and e15k all support true partitioning, including FULL separation of power circuitry between partitions! as with the last line, they are very interchangeable with each other. now add solaris, an OS that is stable, and scales extremely well up to 106 processors and 512 GB of RAM in one machine (read again, that is 512 GIGS of RAM). did I mention hot-swappable CPUs? did I mention that Sun's partnership with Hitachi lead to Sun's offering of 75 Terabyte SAN-attached arrays?
So, Mr. Cringely, who exactly is going to fill this gap for Enterprise servers for mission critical apps if Sun tanks?
But yet he claims that Sun has "no real technical leadership". how about that. so they dont. most companies with "real technical leadership" sit on the sidelines and daydream about marketing products with this kind of quality.
I guess if Sun tanked, people could still buy IBM or HP hardware and run (gasp) AIX or HPUX. I've been responsible for AIX in my life, and it's not really pretty. And IBM's linux offering on mainframes seems as absurd to me as spending the money for a twin-turbo porsche and then asking for vinyl seats because you don't like the feel of real leather.
In a sense, I'm biased because I have built my career around being an expert in Sun hardware, Solaris, Veritas tools, and Perl. But then, this is exactly why I am able to know how big corporations think. CTO's aren't wandering from big UNIX machines for awhile when it comes to anything important...
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
``submit to the whims of the dark overlord? Maybe I'll switch to Mac development, after all."''
Why is everybody so upset about Java dying? OK, on paper it was quite a good language, but in practice everything that could go wrong did go wrong: horrible performance, incompatibilities between versions (think AWT), bloat, you name it. Obviously Java doesn't live up to the compile once, run everywhere paradigm, its main selling point. If you need different code on different platforms anyway, you can as well go for native binaries, which will perform better and possibly look better, too. However, it's hard to go that way with Java, because of lack of native compilers. That means that Java is pretty much doomed (although it seems to be getting a second chance on handhelds these days - makes me wonder if they weren't slow and low on memory enough yet without running a JVM).
However, this doesn't mean we have to surrender and capitulate to the Great Satan. Ever hear of Pyton? It is very similar to Java in that it is an object-oriented language with garbage collection, and can be compiled into platform-independent bytecode, which can then be interpreted on any platform. However, there are some important differences. One is that the Python interpreter is open source and has been ported to a wide range of platforms, providing identical functionality (save for some platform-specific extensions) on each of them. Most of the functionality is provided by high-level, native binary modules, making both coding and execution fast. With few modifications, Python programs can be compiled to native binaries, should the need arise.
I am not a Python expert, so there may be inaccuracies in the above, but I do know Pyton is Here and Now. I see no need to give up the fight if we have such a good weapon left. Python needs work, but so does the competiton. So instead of whining, get going!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Quotes from the Cringely column:
"Scott McNealy will have to stumble on a new business just as he stumbled on servers and Java. This means getting new and energetic technical leadership for the company, which desperately needs another Bill Joy."
"McNealy has to
I've been studying issues of this nature for more than 30 years. What has happened to Sun has happened to Microsoft and Intel and other companies. The leaders become tired. The human brain cannot do essentially the same thing for many years without a serious rest. The human brain cannot operate in a healthy fashion if it is always being told what to do; the brain needs plenty of time to connect everything with everything else.
Cringely is not a deep thinker. He once set a goal for himself to design and build a new kind of aircraft in a month. He wasn't successful, or course.
Basically Cringely says that Scott McNealy should put a huge amount of new brainpower into Sun. On the surface this is a good idea. But it is an idea that is always true, like saying that if starving people have more money, they will eat. It is always true that a company can use more brainpower.
Effectively, all Cringely is saying is "If the problem goes away, the problem won't be there." Or, "If Sun has more brainpower, Sun won't have problems with lack of brainpower."
The real problem is that Scott McNealy and other executives don't understand the limits of the human brain. They believe they can do more with their brains than is actually possible.
The brain is subject to the limits described by Gestalt psychology. If a person stares at something long enough, it disappears from consciousness. Basically, Scott McNealy cannot hold the issues of growing a computer company in his consciousness for many years without periodic serious rest.
Gestalt is a German word for the phenomenon of how events or ideas connect in the human brain. Since wisdom is connectedness in the brain, the phenomenon is extremely important.
The phenomenon of perception is described in the book, Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality ,
by Frederick S. (Fritz) Perls, Ralph Hefferline and, Paul Goodman. This is the only book of which I am aware that describes the ideas of Gestalt psychology clearly.
There is apparently some sense inside Intel that Andy Grove got cancer because he overworked himself; at least Intel employees readily accept this idea. Intel has serious problems now with marketing. The lack of good marketing is limiting the company's understanding of how to find the necessary new technical directions. There is no one at Intel now with the brainpower to see the problems or resolve them.
Microsoft has the same problem. Microsoft executives are slowly destroying the company by being adversarial toward their customers. But Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are tired. They have been doing the same thing day and night since they were young adults. They simply don't have the brainpower to recognize the problems and fix them, particularly since fixing the problems in this case would require that they resolve inner conflict that they've had since childhood. (I wrote an article that discusses some of Microsoft's adversarial behavior: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.)
The problems at Sun are very common. Fairchild Semiconductor and Novell, for example, destroyed themselves in the same way. The executives reached a point where no amount of pressuring themselves could result in more useful brain activity.
I read Bob Cringely's columns each week on both PBS and InfoWorld because I like his fanciful take on the things he writes about. But when he comes up with these pie-in-the-sky scenarios, he's almost never right. Just as he suggested Apple would/should port OS X to X86 and Microsoft should replace the Windows kernel with the Linux kernel. Just plain nuts. It also looks as though he compared notes with Charles Cooper at CNet/ZDNet
I think Sun only has to lose their emotional attachment to the Sparc processor. They have too much else going for them.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
No one can tell what's going to happen in this arena. You've got "only" five years, so you are dead. That sounds too premature. Anything can happen in five years in IT industry. As the author claims, Sun might be gone; on the other hand, Sun might be ruling the world by then.
Amen. To put this in perspective, 5 years ago the dot-com boom was just getting off the ground. If you think you can predict *THIS* industry, I have some stock options I would like to sell you.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You are absolutely correct, but you miss the really big reason why Sun will not merge with Sony. The company that needs to merge with Sony is Apple. When you get right down to it, both are essentially consumer electronics companies right now with some distractions tacked on. (For Sony, it's the entertainment division; for Apple, it's the endless fight for survival.) If you merge Sony and Apple, though, you get something very interesting:
I think the big weakness after the merger is that Sony really doesn't have a printer line, but that's okay; they'll be able to pick up the dried up remains of HP for almost nothing in, say, 2 years.
Babar