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Sun's Last Stand

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nautical-twilight dept.

non writes "Wired has an article by Gary Revlin in the July edition about the current state of affairs at Sun. He attributes half of Sun's problems to failure to recognize the emergence of Linux, and the other half to their failure to make up with Microsoft, and finishes up with a server price comparison. An interesting read."

15 of 553 comments (clear)

  1. Same thing was said about Apple by ajiva · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People are always predicting doom for Sun and Apple, and yet both companies manage to hold on. Sun's doing much better than a year ago and is selling LOTS of hardware. They aren't dead yet...

  2. Sun Doesn't appeal to me by haydenth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you can partially blame sun's (demise?) on their inability to attract younger developers. As a (younger) sysadmin, I didn't touch a sun box until I got into my first job. Even then I am concentrating on migrating everything over to Linux because it is what I know. I think the same applies in a lot of cases, especially with the younger-folk. How many teenagers do you see trying out Solaris? How many do you see trying out Linux? I would imagine that Linux would far exceed Sun.

    When my boss asks me to recommend a server, I would most definetely recommend a Linux server over a Solaris box simply because I have far more experience with Linux than with Unix.

    --
    - tom -
    1. Re:Sun Doesn't appeal to me by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure it's more difficult (if you don't want to pay $20), but certainly possible even for the poorest college students.

      --
      This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
  3. Re:For payback by Brad+Cossette · · Score: 4, Insightful
    See, I'd figure IBM as a more likely candidate to buy out SUN. Big Blue has already made a significant investment into UNIX/AIX and Linux and especially Java, so from the software side there's incentive that way. Plus, servers and high-end workstations are still a mainstay of IBM's business.

    While I've seen some adds for Apple servers, I don't know if that's a market Apple can or will thrive in - SUN just doesn't seem to add much to Apple unless they're looking at expanding their business directions.

    --
    -- "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" [Oscar Wilde]
  4. Java by pubjames · · Score: 5, Insightful


    What I've never understood about Sun is why they didn't make it easier to install Java on a client machine. If you tried to do it (on either Windows or Linux) you would find that the process was increadably badly designed. Most members of the normal public wouldn't stand a chance installing it.

    Did they do this on purpose, or are they just incompetent? I've just noticed that they've made it much easier, but for years it was very difficult, at least for normal people.

    1. Re:Java by greg_barton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Each application that wants to use Java recommends you install their bundled version of Java

      This is Sun's fault. The folks at jpackage have been trying for quite some time to create freely distributable RPMs of JREs and SDKs. THe technical issues are surmountable, but Sun won't let you distribute a JRE unless it's bundled with a application, for the specific purpose of being used with that app and no other.

      This is a legal issue entirely of Sun's making.

    2. Re:Java by Hiro+Antagonist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sun does not, nor will it ever, understand users. The entire company is geared toward sysadmins who are expected to be able to jump through install hoops and tweak systems to get top performance.

      That's correct, and a Ferrari is aimed at drivers who know how to properly handle a sports car. The multitude of schmucks buying them to impress other people, while signifigant, represents a much smaller segment of the market -- most of the young rich idiots who buy Ferraris without ever learning to drive on a race track end up getting themselves killed.

      Sun is proud of their "9's" - 99.999...% uptime. The truth is that 99.99% of businesses don't need that percentage. Sun is proud of their scaling, but I've got news - 99.99% of businesses don't need that much power.

      Right, but the ones that do (They're known as the 'Fortune 500') are willing to pay premium prices to get what they want, just like Ferrari drivers. Sure, it's a niche market, but it's a lucrative one.

      It's also clear that we'll hit 10Ghz machines with multiple gigs of RAM in just a few years, and they'll cost around $1K; if you want terabytes of disk it may cost around $2K. How is Sun going to compete with that?

      Right, and how do I make two hundred clones of your monster Wintel machine in an hour and a half, without needing an assistant? Oh, wait, I can't. Will I be able to swap out CPUs without a second of downtime? Can I reassign hardware resources between different virtual domains on this monster workstation from a terminal on a different continent without needing to physically touch the machine, all without downtime? Is your monster PC going to be able to handle transferring over 40G/sec on its motherboard backplane to multiple drives?

      I don't think you really understand how this technology is used.

      --

      --
      I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy .sig.
  5. Priceless... by thrillbert · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sun Fire V480
    Four 900-MHz UltraSparc III Cu processors,16 Gbytes RAM, Solaris 8: $46,995

    IBM eServer pSeries 630 Model 6C4
    2 x 2-way 1.2-GHz Power4+ processor, 8 Gbytes RAM, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8: $35,944

    Dell PowerEdge 6650
    Four 1.5-GHz Intel Xeon processors, 16 Gbytes RAM, Red Hat Linux 8 Professional: $24,421

    Seeing the expression on people who claimed Linux was not ready for the enterprise: Priceless.
    Some things money can buy. Piece of mind and a wad in your wallet can only be achieved by cheap hardware and an even cheaper operating system.

    This message brought to you by Open Source. Live free!

    ---
    You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty.
    -- Henrik Ibsen

  6. Sun's biggest problem is... by MosesJones · · Score: 4, Insightful


    They are probably the worlds most innovative software company....

    And they don't know it. Or if they do they don't know how to capitalise on it. Cracking products, cracking ideas that are at the very edge, but very little go-to-market.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  7. Why can't I get Java working on my RH8 box? by Dr_Marvin_Monroe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...here's the crux of Sun's problem!...I've never been able to really get Java working with Mozilla on my box. I don't want to rebuild half of my system to do it either!...Why can't I just simply get an RPM that WORKS!....

    Since I built my first Linux box (3 years ago), Java has been a TOTAL hassle in every release. I read little snippets about "licensing" type problems here, lib compatability problems there, etc, all while they are still whining about MS.

    The article is right. They seem preoccupied with MS and this wrongheaded idea that somehow they will right the wrongs in court or through the media...get your products working, make them easy to install and put them EVERYWHERE and the problem will solve itself.

    Yeah, MS thwarted them illegally, keep whining about that and you will be bankrupt like all the others that MS wronged. Now just get over it, pick yourself up and make it as easy for EVERYONE to install JRE and JDK on ANY platform...be damned with the "licensing" bullsh*t. Like any war, you must win "on the ground" in order to be effective. Give MS a little taste of thir own medicine, give your new Java development studio away for cheap. Who cares if you were wronged if nobody can even install your stuff?

    Just my two cents.....

    p.s. I'm still without any Java on my Mozilla 1.0.1 install.....

    1. Re:Why can't I get Java working on my RH8 box? by babyrat · · Score: 4, Insightful
      ..here's the crux of Sun's problem!.

      Quick! Does anyone have Scott McNealy's number? I need to call him to let him know that all his companies problems will be solved if he simply gets Java working with Mozilla on this guys linux machine.

      He was worried about IBM and Sun and Intel and Microsoft - clearly he should send someone over to install the JRE on Redhat 8.

      100 million java enabled cell phones...installation on a browser/OS combo that no-one* uses...hmmm...where to spend your time?


      *okay - high percentage of users reading this (myself included), but low percentage of Sun's target market (embedded devices and enterprise applications)

  8. Reminds me of DEC by Mistah+Blue · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sun reminds me of DEC. DEC had great hardware, impeccable service and Ultrix rocked. However, they couldn't market. Look where it got them.

    I see the same thing with Sun. They are too busy trying to be Microsoft, stabbing their partners in the back, and I've seen service that is not of the usual high caliber.

    I predict they will be gone in 5 years (bought by someone else, or just plain out of business).

  9. Re:For payback by RoLi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think Sun is worth much more, a lot more.

    But only if they play their cards right.

    Sun has 1 thing no other big computer-maker has: Complete independence from Microsoft.

    If Sun were smart they would slap together cheap parts (may be but don't have to be x86), put KDE (not GNOME) and Linux on it and offer it at a good price.

    IBM, HP, Dell etc. can't react that easily because they have to fear retaliation from Microsoft, so Sun could be the only serious Linux workstation maker for quite a few years. Despite all financial problems, Sun has a very good trademark so I have no doubt that Sun could sell a lot of those machines.

    Also this wouldn't hurt their server business because those machines would be desktops.

  10. "Dated installation" ?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you living in a cave? One of *the* great things about sun hardware and solaris is jumpstart, the ability to go to the 'ok>' prompt on a sun box (find that on your home PC for me, wouldja boy?), type "boot net - install" and wack, 30 minutes later you've got a box installed that looks exactly like the 200 other boxes ... you just installed.

    PuLEASE, if all you want is glitz, don't talk about Linux, solaris, or the *BSDs; what you're really looking for is Fischer-Price.

  11. Same old stuff. by pmz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sun is still selling compelling products, but they have always lagged in marketing skills, it seems. Isn't this the reputation they have always had?

    For example, the V210/240 is comparable to a dual-CPU 2GHZ Xeon server--but it also comes with FOUR gigabit Ethernet interfaces and U320 SCSI. It would be a clustering monster (think Oracle RAC). Also, only the newer Opteron servers can compare feature-for-feature (me thinks Sun would do well selling Opterons).

    The Sun ONE marketing is a bit confusing, at first, but is basically amounts to all the non-operating system software Sun sells. They are also looking to pull an interesting stunt by delivering all software to a customer and unlocking what the customer buys. This is very similar to how high-end CAD/CAM software sells, and it generally works well.

    I think Sun is doing a lot of good stuff. I just hope they weather the economy and keep putting the pressure on Microsoft, IBM, and HP. Sun, whether you like them or not, is an important part of keeping the IT industry in check.

    --
    Healthcare article at Kuro5hin