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Economist article on Sun's Linux Strategy
DavidNWelton writes "The Economist has a well-written article about Sun's Jonathan Schwartz and his Linux strategy. It also mentions Microsoft, and the SCO lawsuit."
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Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Huh? Did I miss something?
Since when did meandering blather, gibberish, and recycled blurbs make for good writing?
The only "news" in the article is the author's fantasy of a hypothetical Sun buy-out by Oracle or Cisco [neither of whom is doing all that great themselves].
the reason SCO can target IBM is b/c IBM was its partner in a "next generation unix" project called AIX 5L or, earlier, Project Monterrey. So IBM, unlike Sun, has engineers who work on Linux AND engineers who had access to SCO ip.
A friend of mine recently bought a server from Dell. The main thing he was looking at was the hardware side of things as he wanted to install the OS from the ground up. Dell offered the best hardware and support for the price and also they do price matching so he got quite a few things cheaper than expected.
Surely Sun can't exactly sell the hardware for any cheaper than it can already be bought for, so what's the advantage of choosing them over a company like Dell?
Unless of course they bring the power of Solaris to x86 and do it nicely? It's just the same thing from someone else.
Sun can have its engineers design the server and have them built in the same factories as Dull. They can sell it for the same price (or $50 less).
Oh you now want an operating system to run an application on that foot warmer? Dull will be happy to RESELL a Microsoft or Red Hat Enterprise OS for a few $K. Sun has Solaris x86 with 0 COGS to them.
Linux is not a puppy. I ran Redhat 6.2 for my firewall until just like a month ago. Linux doesn't have to be upgraded and tendered to. Maybe for exploits but Solaris has those too.
Atto
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Whatever Sun's fate, Mr Schwartz is probably right that the software industry will not be taken over by free programs, as some geeks would like. The main attraction of open source, as he says, is the fact that it is "great for innovation", not its questionable claim to be free.
Does the author of this article actually understand anything about software or economics? It seems to me that any consumer in the world should want "free programs" as opposed to those you have to pay for. Even if we assumed that all that silly FUD about Linux having a higher TCO than Windows or Solaris, were true; wouldn't consumers still desire that Linux (and the rest of open soruce) progresses to a point of of lower TCO? And shouldn't that be a lot more viable for open source than a software product which locks you into a big company that just wants more of your money, not less? Anyways, open source is winning and will win more because it can innovate faster and for less. It is not just "great for innovation", it costs less, and costs (TCO) keep going down.
The Economist article said:
The main attraction of open source, as he says, is the fact that it is "great for innovation", not its questionable claim to be free."
Anyone else annoyed with the writers confusion on free software/gratis software throughout the article. Well guess it's viewpoint of the Economist. No wonder they interpret free as "free (as in beer)".
No, not everyone "knows" that.
Yes, there are plenty of people who will have that reaction.
For many of them, the word "Linux" does not convey something familiar that they can grasp, just a mixture of promises of free software and threatening images of dirty hippies taking over their MIS department.
For some of them, it's not even that. It's something they have read in some magazine or other and is as irrelevant to them as many other "IT-related hypes" they haven't really jumped into: Java, web services, XML, etc.
For a lot of them, Microsoft is an expensive business partners that, in their strange and costly ways, give them the solutions they know and need to keep their business running. They may not like the price, but they don't exactly hate the company or spell it as M$, or even distrust them. For them, Microsoft works.
There are people inside and outside the IT industry that don't read Slashdot, you know?
There are people who don't follow news related to Linux with the zeal of advocacy.
Many of them have the money and the position to make decisions and even force them over the rest of the technical crew. Even when they are the wrong decisions.
Remove the names and cultural baggage from the picture and you might see why the FUD works: big company X with expensive lawyers is sued by smaller, failing company S over IP. other big company Y and potential target, also with expensive lawyers, licenses the IP "before they get sued".
Most interpretations that don't imply Y is minimizing risk depend on a preconceived idea of what Y is like, what their strategy is and what their methods are. The bias is justified by a knowledge of the history of Y, of companies that interacted with it, and in no small amount by personal, political and technical judgement.
This is all good and nice, more than enough to understand there are more complex factors and motivations behind a Microsoft decision on the matter. But it would not be easy to convince someone to risk their business on that judgement over a half-hour discussion (before their eyes glaze over) unless you're preaching to the choir.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Why? The same reson that Microsoft does, money and control. Once an OS is loaded on a system there is an amazing amount of control that a software publisher can leverage. Of course they will jock the numbers around to make linux look like a complete looser as far a maintence costs go. In truth it is extreamly difficult to calculate software maintenance costs because the numbers are just so darn close. What would a Solaris Admin cost as opposed to a Linux Admin? Also the question of support contracts can easily be greased by (Sun, Microsoft, IBM, fill in your favorite IT company). My answer to this question is to factor these items out of the equation and look strictly at the initial cost of the software and what the projected upgrade costs will be. But that's just me...
IT's not about "Free shit".
Will proprietary software with real value still have commercial value? HEll yes, always.
Will proprietary software that does the same thing as free software have value? No, why should it?
Why should we be paying anyone money for something people are willing to do for free. Simple as that.
Look at.. Vmware. Good product. Solid. Makes money. Then we have FreeMware. Not so good. Not even close, really. VMWare definately has *value*, and lots of it.
Now, if VMWare sits on their product and does nothing but fix bugs, that situation won't last. Eventually, freemware, or someone else, might catch up, or surpass it. But all VMWare has to do is keep innovating and developing, and they can keep selling their great product.
The same goes for everything.... we all don't like windows because, hell, the only reasons we really use it are because we are forced to by software compatability... we don't see it as anyhing that adds real value.. only artificial value.
Free software will continue to set a baseline standard for software, which you have to beat significantly in order to actually sell software. That's where things are going. ANd that's a GOOD way for things to be. Nobody is saying focused, commercial programming efforts can't pay off bigtime.. they absolutely can.. butnot if you are going to make snakeoil.
I am amazed that companies like sun and MS can actually push stuff like this. When you buy support for Solaris, you ultimatly can only get it from one company; Sun. Likewise, the same is true for Windows. These companies can (and do) charge outlandish $ for the support. With an OSS approach like BSD or Linux, then multiple companies compete to offer support. True competition is always good as it drives down prices and quality up. Partial competition leads to either low prices or ok qualtity, but rarely both. And finally, no competition, well, it speaks for itself.
I think that is is safe to assume that Linux is = to Sun on maintenence costs (most likely ==) and a great deal than MS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So the author doesn't understand what "free" means in this context. The perpetual confusion of free as in beer and free as in liberty. Most open source software may not be gratis but it is not at all questionable that it is "software libre".
On the hardware side, Sun's hardware engineering and field support are far superior to most PC systems, so the only reason they might trail in a head to head competition is price. Again, no personal experience with Sun x86 platforms, but as long as they don't fall far below their quality on the SPARC platform, I would have no problem recommending these systems, particularly if cost isn't the highest rating element.
That said, I think it is pretty ironic that Sun is probably suffering the most right now from the rise of Linux (and Dell is probably the benneficiary of this movement). They have been the most "Open" of the Open Systems vendors (not to be confused with Open Source). On the other hand, they probably will survive all of this and emerge as a leaner, meaner competitor and deliver even better system solutions at even better prices. Personally, I think they are making a mistake by not fully embracing Linux, but they have a lot of people and resources working on Solaris, so it is hard to change. They may be forced to by economics, though.
If you told the author of this article you were giving him a free car, with a free warranty for parts and a substantial discount on labor, apparently his response would be "Oh yeah? What about gas?". Sheesh.
It might seem different if you have to hire a chauffeur, though.
What about predictable release schedules, excellent service, bundled apps and good ISV support? (All right, forget about the last bit - for now at least).
There's also the advantage of having your techies 'fluent' on the same OS throughout the datacentre, with one partner to deal with when things go well... or go wrong.
Newcomer to the market? Sun buys its 2-way Intel servers from the same manufacturer that many vendors buy their 2-way Intel servers from, and that manufacturer is not new to the market.
Furthermore, most Intel servers use either Intel motherboards or Broadcom motherboards. So if vendor B is buying 2-way Xeon boxes based on Intel motherboards from an Asian assembler that puts a blue plastic shell on the motherboard, and vendor B is doing the same thing, albeit with the Asian assembler using a black plastic shell, and both vendors outsource their hardware support to the same company that specializes in low-end Intel server support, and both vendors provide Red Hat but outsource their software support to Red Hat, what is the difference, or what is the relavance of how long the the vendor has been in the market?
Your statement makes about as much sense as if Sun had switched from Seagate to Hitachi hard drives in its systems, and you said Sun is a newcomer to the Hitachi hard drive market.
2-way x86 servers are commodities. The only significant companies innovating on these are Intel, AMD, and Broadcom. Not the companies that acutually sell them.