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Sun Posts Increasing Loss
Chromodromic writes "Sun Microsystems posted an increasing loss at a time when many tech firms are beginning to report stable or increasing earnings and stocks are looking up. According to the Wall Street Journal, it looks like Sun, the formidable peddlers of Solaris, Java, and UltraSPARC Fire servers are facing competition from measly ol' Dell and Intel. Even Scott McNealy has been reported to concede in a May 2002 meeting with top execs that Sun has to change, including building up trust with customers that have been put off by McNealy's sometimes controversial personality and Sun's reputed internal disarray which according to Merrill Lynch is indicating that Sun requires a makeover. The Merrill Lynch report was, in fact, particularly scathing and has raised a few Wall Street eyebrows."
Trying that is to back SCO and spread a little bit of anti-Linux FUD here and there. BUt the writing is on the wall... Netcraft will be weighing in before long.
Is to fire the lazy ass American workers and outsource fine systems like Solaris and Java to India.
Oh, wait...
My university's Laboratory for Computer Science did a test between a Sun machine and a IBM compatable running linux in order to see if they could justify the cost of buying new Sun machines like they always have. IIRC the Sun machine cost five times more and performed three times worse than the IBM.
This was on running code from the profs (so research code), which is mainly what the machines would be used for.
but not his outspokenness.
One, they started with Unix because it was open. Among the unix licensees the scene has the bazaar atmosphere. They should have jumped on Linux.
Also they are a hardware company and not all their hardware is great anymore. The Ultra 10's seem to crash like flies (this mixed metaphor is anecdotal and maybe you think different).
Does Java make them money?
-pyrrho
As many have noted, Sun have never formed a coherent strategy about linux. Their statements re. linux seem to be a mix of hostility, skepticism and euphoria. Also, they have a finger in every pie without a clear vision of where they want to be in a market of ups and downs. And lately they have shown that they are not above cheap marketing gimmicks either -- witness the branding of Mad Hatter as the "Java desktop system" (its actually just another linux distro.)
And I don't like sun spots. Bad for the reindeer tracking radar, if you get my drift.
...this joke is dying.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Well to me it seems that if Sun isn't careful it could end up going a similar path to Sun. They both use to be good in the general workstation market and slowely got pushed into niche markets. Then in the niche markets commedity x86 solutions started taking hold. Both then started to look towards Linux as a solution to break back out. It will be intresting to see how it all play out
R.
Cheap UK and US VPS
2 1337 4 u!
Always a good idea as it helps boost morale of the troops as it always seems that companies are top heavy
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Full disclosure: I really dislike SUNW as a company. I think their products are weak and overpriced, and I think
Java is actually the worst thing to happen to computing, evar. McNealy is a whiney dork in my book, always playing 2nd
fiddle to Bill, Steve and Larry. It's pathetic what he drones on about, really. But enough praise...
I think if SUNW were to close shop tomorrow, it would serve to re-enforce the fact that Microsoft is an monopoly; SUNW
just becomes the next victim. So in death, SUNW can serve a purpose.
But I'm afraid they'll make up with Microsoft and not us.
Much as they have exhibited a multiple-personality disorder where we are concerned, I'll not forget the good they've done us.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Between PPC/OSX and AMD64/Linux - what the heck does anyone need Sun for exactly?
I mean besides comic relief of course.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
They're not - right now, the entry level v60x and v65x are cheaper than equivalent servers from Dell.
Quote from
http://www.sun.com/lowcost/feature/v60-v65.html
They spend so much money of Java and it doesn't make them much money in return. Open Java up and let everybody port it to every OS. BeOS and other OSes would jump at this opportunity. Make it the true Microsoft-killer it was intended to be.
Don't market Java as freedom from control (shackles of Microsoft) when it is actually just another form of control (Sun Microsystems).
but I do agree SUN is doomed.
I've been talking to a senior financial trader early this year, he said SUN's stock price is sky-rocketed to a point that they have to produce at $0 cost and sells for ten years to make up for the hyped value. Which is, of course, almost impossible.
Until recently I do believe SUN has already stuck one foot into its doom. As I speak we've already ruled out Solaris in several enterprise projects in favour of Linux. The cost of ownership is one factor, and the full-range maintenance supports from IBM, HP and Oracle is indeed a killer.
It's true that(don't flame) Linux has much to catch up with Solaris in enterprise deployment, but the market demand for Linux will only cause Linux to catch up fast and thus SUN's products will soon lose their market competitiveness very soon.
I can't understand it. They make kick arse low end unix servers. 1 rack unit fantastic to manage boxes that cost less than an intel box.
I think sun over the last few years has been innovating like crazy. Sure they havent gone crazy with solaris, but stability is sometimes a good thing. Once upon a time you couldnt get a "real" unix box for less than $10k. These days they (sun boxes) are cheaper than intel. I can't believe they arent selling them hand over fist.
Long live unix.
I for one pledge alegence to our new shell scripting masters.
At the bank where I currently work, lets just say somewhat larger than Merrills, they see a future of Microsoft and Linux. They do not see other Unixes like Solaris, AIX or whatever.
Banking used be very big for Sun and they still do those E10Ks, but I dons't see many Suns on the desktop now (they used be very popular in trading rooms).
See my journal, I write things there
> for someone at the right price. Maybe someone like IBM will eventually snap them up for
> their Java technology.
Scary thought: since Java is no ISO standard (yet?), what if SUN suddenly subscribes to the SCO mindset and starts asking for license fees...?
Today, they are the same company they were 6 years ago. With the same operating system, the same hardware, but without the cool people and in fact without much at all that is still cool. The fact that they haven't changed with the times is exactly the problem.
In order for Sun to fix itself, it needs:
- A super cool, fast and cheap workstation. We are talking a cheap 4-way (or 8-way) Opteron with a 3D display or something similar. It has to be the best bang-for-the-buck on the market with features and "cool factor" that no-one else has. McNeally should walk across the street from the Cupertino campus and ask Jobs how to make this happen.
- To re-build their reputation as the price/performance leader. This is what kept their financial engines running strong through the 90s and they need to do it again. Even if they have to sell at cost in order to build the economy of scale, they MUST do this and do it NOW. They should shift to AMD processors in a huge way until their multi-core ultrasparcs hit, they should do whatever is neccessary. Period.
- They need to kiss and make-up with IBM. IBM can make a good partner for Sun. But Sun has alienated IBM and now IBM sees them as a pesky competitor instead of a competitive partner as Sun needs them to.
- They need a new center of gravity. Java was a perfect center-of-gravity for a long time. But Java is boring now. Nobody cares anymore... Sun has hundreds, if not thousands, of beautiful research projects that are sexy and cool... These generally stay research, which is unfortunate. They need to go harvest a couple of these and revv up their PR engines..
The greatest mistake that Sun can make right now is to assume that they will "pull out" of their death-spiral by making Java Desktops and waiting for the next generation of ultra-sparcs to hit. That is exactly how they can guarantee their own death. To live, they must kill their own business and allow the new, innovate stuff that they have in their labs to rise like a pheonix from the ashes of what was killed.The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Like it or not, SUN has been a driving force behind commercial success for UNIX for a long time. Without SUN, UNIX (and thus also Linux) would have been swept away by others (mainly windows and other closed proprietary midrange operating systems) long ago.
Now, we can only hope and pray that Linux has gained enough commercial credibility to stand on its own feet (together with AIX and HPUX as 2 other remaining serious representatives in the UNIX world). As for the "big iron", that is almost mainframe class servers with partitioning etc. SUN is still in the lead and for many it is either Mainframe (MVS) or SUN. If SUN falls away, it would be a huge loss of reputation for UNIX as a whole, which would damage "us" all, including Linux proponents.
To some of the Linux fanatics I say: look a bit further than you own little server or linux desktop at home. If Linux would "beat" Solaris, at this time it surely would be a "pyrrhus victory", that is this victory would damage and weaken UNIX/Linux as a whole and help more devious competitors.
IBM could take over SUN's role at this time, but IBM's signals never have been so clear. Some parts of IBM sell and UNIX, some even give away some developments such as JFS, though only very tiny amount compared to what SUN has done and given, but other (large) parts of IBM are clearly in the proprietary camp (windows, AS/400 or MVS) and view UNIX as a competitor that must be extinguished. I would not (yet) count on IBM as a reliable ally for the UNIX camp.
Some people think that Sun does have a future as a hardware manufacturer, but I think I will have to agree with the article, they can't win the fight against being squeezed out of the market by cheap Intel/AMD servers running Linux (or Windows..).
They really have to decide where they are going, and find a new way to earn money. I think Java is their best bet. I HOPE they will do something like IBM, and jump on the Linux bandwagon as the main platform for Java. Still, finding a steady and large revenue stream from that could be difficult. I suspect they get some from Websphere and the other one (forget what its called), and maybe some from selling courses in Java, but that can't be enough. If they started charging money for using Java I think they would discover that their customer loyalty would evaporate pretty quickly.
I suspect some people here on Slashdot will crow about the problems Sun is going through, but consider that Sun has actually been good for the Open Source world. If it wasn't for the fact that it is a cheap Java platform, Linux would not be as widespread as it is in the business world. Also, they gave us Open Office, and participates and even sponsors a number of Open Source projects. Ant, GNOME, Tomcat, GNUlpr, Open Office... Sure, most projects are Java related, but that is understandable and it is still more than most of the big companies have given us.
Well, if they die, it will be interesting to see what happens with Java. Perhaps they will Open Source it completely, if not out of the goodness of their hearts, then at least as a poison pill against Microsoft...
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Before reading too many "Linux is better/faster/... anyways", please remember that SUN has still a market almost nobody can compete in (maybe IBM) and that is very very high availability and stability - think 24/7 webshops with high traffic and high loses if something goes down. The admins are glad that somebody shelled out 1 million for the E10k, so they can sleep well at night.
...)
However, you can "simulate" a single high available server with a bunch of commodity hardware and heartbeat monitoring quite well - think google.
SUN deserves to have losses because the too long did not recognise that for the normal type of algorithms used at universities and small research firms, x86 does the job more than good - and the slower SPARC simply can't compete for some reason - because the good old 386 is now on amphetamine (think SSE/3DNow!, register renaming to avoid spilling code [reload data from memory], 1-2MB 2nd lvl cache, 3+GHz, 400MHz mem-bus, 64bit and more registers with the new AMDs right now,
As the first reader pointed out, the maschines cost 5 times and perform 3 times worse - numbers I can totally back with my experiences in the speech-analysis-field.
From one minute, to the next, what is up with Sun. Some questions for Scott:
1) Does Sun support x86 for Solaris?
2) Does Sun support Linux on Sparc?
3) Is Linux good, or bad?
4) Why can't you run multple Linux VMs on a single Solaris O/S?
Simple stuff. Basic stuff. But it changes with the hour of the day and the latest "Marketing Announcement" at Sun. Why would I work with Sun as a reseller of anything if I don't know from minute to minute what they want me to pitch?
Sun provides many things that are *good* - such as Java, and Open Office. It just really, truly blows to see this power blown in such an incredible display of marketing ineptitude...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Java couldn't be considered fledgling anymore but were Sun to go under I can't help thinking that Java would suffer. With MS no longer supporting it that would leave only IBM as a large company behind Java. I don't think Java as a stand alone 'product' would be very appealing to another company.
But let's see if it's at least true.
Let's take the cheapest v60x.
Sun: 1 Xeon CPU 2.8 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 36 GB SCSI HDD (10K RPM), gigabit ethernet... $2,450
Dell: _exact_ same configuration, without an OS (since I'm gonna install Linux on it too), no network switch included... $1,746
No seriously, check out the Dell PowerEdge 1600SC and set it to 2.8 GHz, "512MB DDR SDRAM,1x512 ", No OS and None in the " Dell PowerConnect Network Switches" category.
Whoops, so Sun is full of s**t again. The Dell is, in fact, one helluva lot cheaper than Sun's bulls**t.
Let's try a dual CPU, then?
Sun: 2 Xeon CPU 2.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 36 GB SCSI HDD (10K RPM), gigabit ethernet... $3,395
Dell: we'll take the same as Dell server as above, and bring it on par with the Sun: second 2.8 GHz Xeon, and "1.0GB DDR SDRAM,2x512"... $2,844
Whoops, again, the Dell is actually cheaper. Reality is quite different from Sun's marketing bulls**t, isn't it?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'd like to see what the people who were busy bashing Merril-Lynch over their predictions are saying now.
You can say what you will about financial institutions, but claiming that Sun and other oldtime industry darlings have their balls in the meatgrinder in this era of commodity hardware cannot be refuted.
.. or SUN is going to end up on the auction block. I'm having feelings of deja vu thinking back to the last days of minicomputer maker Tandem before Compaq "assimilated" them. (Compaq didn't know what to do with their new asset so they just dismantled completely what was left of the company and sent all the employees packin'.)
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
"We understand Sun's car analogy that users don't want to buy parts but a whole car"
So Sun sells them a pickup...
A 1979 fullsize dodge pickup with a inline 6 and a 3-speed...
At 3 times the cost of a Mazda RX-8.
"Will Microsoft find a way to fight the beast?"
Where would you like to SCO today?
KFG
If Sun collapses, they would have to rename the company to... Black Hole!
(doges rotten tomatoes)
Sun made the wrong bet so long ago, it seemss funny to watch analysts poke McNealy in the eye now. By the 'Scott's an asshole' theory, MS should have been broke as of DOS 3 with Bill's level of charm and gravitas.
It's been a classic case of the dot com con job. "We have better ideas, hardware, and only charge 4 times as much for 1/2 the power!" Please sir, tell us another! Make it the Java fairy tail this time. How it's going to save linux and the poor defenseless pirhanas.
Sun used to own the scientific workstation market. I have an Ultra 10 at work and I've been using Sun machines for far longer than I've been using PCs. (1987 for a pre-Sparc Sun machine vs. 1995 for my first Linux PC).
But these days Solaris is a pain for people like me who do their own administration and are used to Linux machines at home. Various annoying decisions: not bundling a C compiler with Solaris, not using more of the gnu utilities or adding gnu features to the Solaris utilities (I once had a script downloaded from Sun fail because the version of awk that comes from Solaris 8 wouldn't handle a sufficient number of fields on a line), CDE (enough said), not maintaining a (IMO) sufficient variety of freeware packages (a lot of free software has to be compiled---see my first gripe), while not shipping a compiler they ship their own set of binutils that are configured to work with the Sun compiler so that a GCC package doesn't fit in seamlessly without extra work. I realize that Sun machines don't come loaded down with everything in part because a Server OS should be lean and stable. But for a workstation the appropriate balance shifts toward giving the user a variety of software---particularly if the user is root and is not a professional sysadmin. The amount of work I have to put into making Sparc pleasant to use as a workstation is really phenomenal. It's like they decided to give up on this part of the market because it wasn't as profitable as selling servers. Whatever happens to Sun, I've probably bought my last Sparc.
It all boils down to what you're doing with the machine.
For some jobs, (like lots of simple comparisons) the MHz is the single most important factor..
Given Sun's history of squabbling with MS, frequently just for spite, there's a possibility that as a last parting blow they may completely free Java, marginalising .NET and paving the way for a merging of the best parts of .NET and Java.
...
I'm such a dreamer
The comfort you demanded is now mandatory - Jello Biafra
Actually, most of us don't think Sun is evil. Just that their whole product line is obsolete, underperforming, overpriced, and lacking any coherent strategy.
Evil? No.
Yet another has-been? Yes. Most definitely.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sun takes a standard Intel rack case and sticks in a standard Intel mobo with a standard Intel bios. Just like you find from any clone shop on Pricewatch.
At least Dell sticks some custom engineering into their racks.
Speaking about Java - just admit that Java has failed. Java in general and EJB specifically are not scalable down, in terms of memory usage, process startup and small project development time. That is bad for really distributed applications. Admit also that a load-balanced cluster of small and mid end servers is cheaper and faster for 80% (if not 99%) of web (and many corporate) applications. In such situations the scalability up is also not really important. So, swtch to Python, Sun. And again, if you find that Python lacks some EJB (but not Java! - Python is practically perfect as a language) features - port them to Python, help Zope or 4Thought or Twisted projects.
In both cases switch your business model to consulting, customized solutions, training - learn from the success of IBM.
Or die.
"I shall explain this by waving my hands about in an appropriate manner." -- Cambridge University Math Dept.
See: 'Suns Changing Horizon'
g =s t_rn
http://news.com.com/2009-7339_3-5087245.html?ta
"But even in the face of this barrage, industry veterans say the company is hardly on the verge of collapse."
"Industry veterans say although Sun has warned of a hefty loss and analysts are calling for drastic changes, the company has viable plans for the future."
We all know that eventually Sun will merge - get bought out by IBM. IBM can't wait to get their hands on JAVA too.
It seems that linux has definately been a threat to more than M$. Sun and HP have taken a hit and they haven't really done too much about, maybe because at first they didn't want to be too insensitive to the "UNIX crowd". It's hard to compete with someone/something when they're giving it away and when that happens there is only one way but down.
What is holding their server markets up is the ability to run enterprise databases, like Oracle. That will probably diminish too, Oracle 10G moves towards cluster computing, low-cost distributed desktop computers.. bye-bye majority of server market for these two.
"Speaking about Java - just admit that Java has failed."
If being the most widely used programming language, and one of the most demanded skills in the software industry is failure, how would you define success?
SUN was offended when it had to give up XNEWS and then openview for the then hopeful desktop contender from OSF called CDE.
That was the biggest mistake, and one that they are just now getting the top brass to recognize.
In terms of hardware, the new V440 is right where SUN should be in terms of hardware, so I see that even there they are finally seeing the light.
So I say take a good look at the new stuff they are doing and ask again if its too little too late or maybe just the tip of the iceberg of what may be coming.
For their sake, I hope its the latter.
Vim is provided on the Solaris Freeware (sic) Companion CD that comes in the Solaris 9 media kit. It was also there in Solaris 8 IIRC.
Sun has been through some tough times recently, but it's about to come back, all guns blazing and kicking ass on all fronts.
Don't be so quick to predict the demise of UltraSPARC
Yea.. yea.. Multi-core, asynchronous multithreading, yaddya...
When? 2 years? What will they be competing against then, when consumer G6s (derived from Power5) are rolling out into iMacs with the same features?
Sun doesn't have to abandon UltraSPARC, but they need a stopgap measure. They should become more like IBM. They should embrace many chip families, hedging their bets. UltraSPARC will just become the higher margin "elite" hardware group, if they can pull it off. At least if UltraSPARC doesn't stay competitive, they will still have viable lines of business...
they could easily have lied, as are MOST of their contemporarIEs, whoare STILL using the felonious BearOnStearno, 'accouNTing' (we will goo) methods, that 'dissolved' J.'s real money/previous imaginary fortunes.
of course, anything that refelects negatively on sumwon whois not on va lairIE/robbIEs 'protection' list, is now 'stuff that matters'.
lookout bullow. the daze of the georgewellian fuddite corepirate nazi phonIE payper liesense stock markup FraUD execrable, is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, at the speed of right.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator....
2. within first two years and first one year after buying a new hardware directly from Sun ...
3. Sun Sparc is overpriced, underperformed and under-reliable hardware...
Less is more !
/. almost NEVER does storIEs about the stock markup FraudFest, & certainly NEVER a peep about the va lairIE payper hanging 'business', unless it furthers their owned agenda.
eye gas it's knot that funnIE
Everytime some FUD comes out about Linux, Sun is there to say 'Oh wait, we're not really suppoting Linux, we have Solaris! Its better!'. Then something good comes out about Linux and Sun issues are press release about what big Linux zealots they are. They are just a bunch of old men who have lost their edge.
it sure looks LIEk the NYT, robbIE et AL, & sum of the felonious kingdumb's other hostages are attempting a ?pr? ?firm? scriptdead lowrating of the sun. what a surprise?
there can be only won?
lookout bullow. run for your options, if you have any left, but be careful whois watching.
I do NOT understand?? Why is this being discussed here?? To deliberately bash SUN?? Why is a company's financial position being discussed?? Has Slashdot analysed other company's financial reports..the ONLY company I see being pulled into such discussions OVER and OVER again is SUN!!! What is this morbid obsession?? Give them a chance, at least...this is sick and I am VERY disappointed...
Dear Linux user,
You may be aware that the version of Linux you are using has some sections of UNIX code developed by Sun. We are not at liberty to disclose the code just yet, but rest assured you can believe us that this is the case. To continue using Linux you need to pay SUN a runtime license of $699 per user. Please send the aforementioned amount in used notes in a plain brown envolope to:
Darl McBride (no connection with SCO),
New CEO of Sun Microsystems
California
USA
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Java IS open, and has ALREADY been ported to just about every OS!
.... Kawa, Kaffe, Toba, GCJ ... whatever!
The latest GNU compiler set includes a Java compiler. The spec of the bytecode is available to anyone, and anyone can write a VM to run Java binaries.
There are only two 'closed' parts of Java - you can't officially call your implementation of the VM 'Java' unless it passes Sun's compatibility tests, and you can't officially implement parts of the J2EE spec and call it 'J2EE' without passing Sun's tests and licencing it. But so what? You can call your product anything else you like
What do you think would have happened to Java if Sun hadn't controlled it? It would have fragmented like C/C++ into a hundred dialects with a thousand extensions. Instead you can compile java into bytecode and run that on IBM's VM, HP's VM, Apples VM, Sun's VM. That is why Java is one of the most widely used languages in the history of computing.
Sun's hardware strategy is increasingly problematic: the cost of incredible computing power is lower than ever. Linux has also taken away a lot of the reliability advantage over Wintel and offers Sun-like functionality.
Sun failed to realize the opportunity that Linux presented:
Ultimately, I fear that Sun may have an SGI like future - they were right for the time five years ago because the Internet was built on Unix as was Sun. Now, wintel boxes and lintel boxes can do internet almost as well if not as well as a Sun. The only remaining reason to purchase a Sun system is proprietary application software. And unfortunately software can easily be ported to other *nix or even Windoze.
-- $G
Compare apples to apples.
You are comparing a 1U rack optimized server(Sun) to a desktop case(Dell). If takes a lot more engineering(and money) to make a powerful server in a 1U form factor. If you had a reading comprehension above that of a 5 year old you might have been clued into the fact that they are comparing their servers to the Dell poweredge servers. Dell's 1750 server is cheaper than the Sun 60x, but the Sun65x is just several hundred off. I would bet that after corporate discounts the price diff would neg. and if Sun's servers perform better...). I can't stand Slashdot idiots making invalid comparisons.
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
What are these people smoking?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Like IBM and HP, Sun's high-end systems are still getting poor sales - all big projects are having trouble getting funding in the current climate. Sun haven't helped themselves by being late with new products - UltraSPARC IIIi was quite late and UltraSPARC IV still isn't out yet (though coming soon).
Interestingly, a high-light of the quarter was Sun's sales of low-end servers - their 1-2 way UltraSPARC systems as well as their low-end x86 systems.
I recently heard McNealy tell an audience that SCO has a "live case" against Linux. I understood that to meam, "Buy Solaris." Of course, he only made the comment because a dunderhead in the audience needed to approach the microphone and ask an intelligent-sounding question... so he asked about SCO. - - - > - Theophraste
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
My company is currently testing their database migration to a SUN environment. In this process we spec'd out a comparable lintel and wintel comparison. We received price quotes from multiple vendors, but SUN was the one who delivered a better bang for the buck.
You can look at the list price of the equipment online and it looks way more expensive, but once you talk to a sales rep, the discounts start rolling in. And claim whatever you want, they did the same thing 3 years ago and 6 years ago. This is not due to their stock price, fear of Redmond, or whatever you want to blame this on.
Oh, one more thing, the "Merrill" guy, he has never had much good to say about Sun. For every article where he kind-of gives Sun good favor, he will follow it with one that is more damning.
Apart from the already pointed out difference in form factor between the few machines, I would still expect the Sun box to be more expensive because they actually invest in some R&D, and sink some of that money into great products like Java.
Not that I'd buy either box, but I'd be tempted to pay a little more to Sun just because they don't give me the impression of being a giant parasite the way Dell does.
I think Sun has become much like Digital Equipment. For decades, played second fiddle to IBM. Finally in the late 1990's, they got squeezed from both above and below. The same is happening to Sun. Just like Compaq bought out DEC for its customer base and intellectual property, I foresee Sun being ripe for a takeover by let's see...perhaps Dell? I mean it's no secret that Dell views the consumer white-box market as a sunset industry, so it's been aggressively expanding upward into the enterprise/server space. So what does it do? It buys up Sun to head off the HP/Compaq behemoth.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Tech firms are reporting stable earnings because they no longer employ Americans. Hey white boys: its your turn to work in 7-11 while the Indians sit in nice offices. Muhahaha.
Sun stopped caring about it's customers and stopped taking responsibility for serious flaws in their hardware. When the [3456]000 and [3456]500 lines of Ultra Enterprise servers had serious ECache Parity problems, Sun as a company did not stand with their customers, instead they filed legal gag orders and tried to silence technical details about the problems when customers were forced to try to fix it themselves.
Sun's financial woes are a direct result of their customers jumping ship for other vendors, ones who though they may make mistakes, will at least work with their customer to fix the problem.
It is a shame that the open off the shelf machines built by Sun many years ago are gone, they helped an industry evolve. Some of the most accomplished minds in the industry have Sun business cards, but the company itself simply sucks. They have a serious integrity problem, and for that the company will die unless they do something radical to fix it.
Go tell that to the marines.
The only reason that the whole PC industry did not switch to the 1U form factor is the fact that the original IBM PC had expansion cards mounted on an edge connector.
Making servers is actually easier than making workstation or desktop PCs in many ways. A server does not in general have to support a bus for a high end graphics card.
There are of course some differences when you get to the real high performance world, interleaved memory, wide memory busses etc. But Sun does not offer anything like that on its 'budget' range.
Sun could have been in a far better position today if they had fired that idiot Scott McNealy five years ago.
I think Scott realized that he was running the company into the ground and started the whole Microsoft feud to give himself an alibi when the company went belly up. Sun is being destroyed by Linux, not Windows.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Yeah, especially now that we have .NET, who needs Java?
Sorry, I had gone more than 30 seconds on this post with out seeing any anti-MS flames. This oughta fix that.
Sun is the only company I know of where you can buy a 10-baseT NIC new and have it cost $700.00. They will also sell you a new 4GB scsi drive for over $1000. The list goes on. They need to start dropping their prices for older hardware. I got an SUN SBUS NIC from ebay for about $20, that's shipped and SUN wants $700.00 for the same card.
I once sysadmined at (now defunct) USA Floral Enterprises. They had a bunch of Sun machines -- E6500s, 450s, Ultra Sparcs. I was running a Linux machine because it made sense to administer Unix boxes from something that could run an X server. When the Sun guys came to sell more hardware they always disparaged the Linux machines, telling our CTO things like, "It's free. What do you expect for free?" Our CTO at one point made the statement, "We're not running *free* software on our network!" The way she said it made "free" sound like something evil and criminal.
Rather than dropping in a cheap $500 Linux machine to pre-process orders, they chose instead to spend close to $30,000 for some E250 solution with some really bad perl software. It wasn't as if it was running some proprietary sparc only app; it was perl for goodness sake.
Anyway, Sun has never liked Linux because Linux pretty much stole all their money making ISP and dot com customers after the crash. But that wasn't the only thing. They stopped caring about what people were doing in the NOCs, choosing to push pet-project technologies that made little sense in the real world. Solaris on Intel was pretty good despite some shortcomings. But they tried to kill it because they believed it took away Sparc sales. Nope. People experimenting with PCs aren't likely to drop $4,000 on a Sparc. So they pretty much conceded that market to Linux when Linux was still unknown at the executive levels. Instead they pushed remote framebuffer devices that cost as much as a decent PC and required significant network bandwidth. They tried to push Java in the wrong places. etc. etc.
No one to blame but themselves.
Any moderators out there? This is the most informative post I've read in a while.
Please buy Sun.
Thank you!
mE
You forgot to mention that you probably lost a shitload in money on the stock market.
Why would you call Sun, which is 3 letters, SUNW, which is 4 letters?
Simple, because you are used to referring to it's stock symbol, which is why you hate them. Meaning, that you probably played them on the stock market and lost a shitload. Hey, I lost around $1000 on Sun on their way down as well, but your true reasons are pretty transparent.
maybe you shouldn't have given all that money to SCO and saved it for a rainy day instead!
I wouldn't condemn all that they have put forth, as some of the posts are doing. Java is effective for what it does, and when it first came out it seemed to be promising. But I personally don't think it's matured much in it's current state. On the negative side, I can always pick out which apps are Java just due to how goddamn slow they are to load up and initiate. Write once, run anywhere isn't true either. It's not a tower of Babel for sure in terms of seamless code portability. But in its day it was promising.
I have used Solaris in prior jobs and think for what it was doing it was a solid *NIX OS. There were bugs, of course, but back in the day that was true of most any OS. I would rate Solaris as above average as an OS during its heyday.
What pisses me off the most about Sun was (and still is) their hardware arrogance. I thought Apple's and IBM's stuff were priced out of control in apples to apples comparisons. But then I had to administer Sun boxes! My call centers had Sun Sparcs and UltraSparcs running IVR apps and other middleware. I was amazed at the price of these beasts. Four to five times that of Intel x86 boxes. Crazy. Where is the returned value? We still had hardware component failure rates right up there with the cheap Intel x86 boxes. Sun's hardware was intended for big corporate sprawls where price isn't a major factor in decision making. Back in the Dot Com boom of the last 90's this was at its peak.
That's the area where Sun has hit the skids. Since the US economic downturn, focus has so tightly locked in on spending that IT budgets aren't as wide open. And although the US economy is picking up again, companies are still used to operating leaner and meaner as business as usual. And that has hurt Sun. Who can justify spending $40-50K on a basic server?
(BTW, I did eventually receive the workstation.)
The exact same 1 CPU Dell configuration as a rack mounted server (yes, the PE1750) ... $1,698
Still cheaper than Sun's crap, or? In fact, even cheaper than the desktop configuration.
If you had a reading comprehension above that of a 5 year old you might have been clued into the fact that they are comparing their servers to the Dell poweredge servers. Dell's 1750 server is cheaper than the Sun 60x, but the Sun65x is just several hundred off. I would bet that after corporate discounts the price diff would neg. and if Sun's servers perform better...). I can't stand Slashdot idiots making invalid comparisons.
Ah, a jolly good flame war. Count me in.
So lemme see. You can't even notice that the PE 1750 is even cheaper, and spew stuff like "If takes a lot more engineering(and money) to make a powerful server in a 1U form factor." Well, gee, Dell's price list says the exact opposite.
Or let's talk basic comprehension of numbers and economics. "is just several hundreds off". Well, guess what? The V60x is exactly $752 more expensive, or a whole 44.3% more expensive than the Dell. (752 * 100 / 1698, for the maths impaired.)
The v65x is even more expensive. It's $2,550 for the smallest config. So $852, or 50.2% more expensive than the Dell.
So you're advocating... what? Paying 50% extra for the _exact_ same machine, just to have Sun's logo on it? Lemming.
As for "if Sun's servers perform better...", that's a huge "if". I'd really like to see some benchmarks first. No, seriously. They're can use exactly the same CPU, motherboard and memory as any other Intel server manufacturer can use. So if you want me to believe that just a bit of marketing hocus pocus will make it run faster, you better show some numbers that prove that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
While you have to pay for the media kit, you can load Solaris on as many machines as you want (as long as they are not SMP). Don't confuse the OS with the maintenance costs for an e10k.
While I have criticised Solaris before, one would be hard-pressed to find another UNIX98 compliant system for x86. Technically, Solaris wins on x86 in several areas.
> If takes a lot more engineering(and money) to make a powerful server in a 1U form factor
Where did you get that idea? 1U form factor servers are about the same price these days. Well, perhaps not from Sun, but in the commodity Intel market.. (dell)
How is Sun being "destroyed by Linux?" If Sun is unable to adapt and improve their product line, aren't they killing themselves?
Sun has relied on a commercial Unix variant for way too long. Less expensive (free) software is doing the same things today that Sun did a few years ago, on less expensive hardware.
Sun should be finding new avenues for income. They are being destroyed by the changing times and the changing needs of companies, if anything. They've got a big name in the server world. How about they use that to their advantage, and offer more competitively priced hardware based on Linux? This is what the other companies (IBM, Dell, HP/Compaq) are doing; They're showing it's successful as well.
Sure you can link together a bunch of cheap PC's, but now you've just shifted the problem that was already solved with a software solution. Using grids is great for processes that can really be batched and distributed, but somethings like high availability is easier with a big IBM or SUN box. Plus, if millions of dollars are flowing through the database per hour, I wouldn't put it on Linux until the hardware matures a bit more. When you consider switched network specification and motherboards won't be selling in retail for atleast nother 10-15 yrs, your only option is to go to NEC, HP and IBM. It's not cheap either. If you look at the TPC results on windows, they are all using their own cell controllers to group CPU's into cells. They basically took all their existing mainframe/Unix designs and modified it to work with x86 CPU's.
They've dug their own grave on the follow basis:
1> UltraSparc multicore is still over a year away, IBM has had a multi-core and low cost processor on the market for over a year. People don't give a toss about Linux, what people want is value for money, SUN doesn't deliver this.
2> Market properly. Who ever is the marketing department needs be given a public beating for the pathetic work they have done. They're like a DEC, great technology run by engineers but can't market themselves out of a paper bag.
3> Scott McNealy should stop whining and start listening to customers who are leaving. Go to the customers and ask, "why are you leaving? have we failed to serve you?". Find out why they are deciding/are leaving and do something about it.
4> Adopt Opteron for 8way and lower machines. Spruce up Solaris x86, PAY for the porting of workstation and desktop applications, and market the x86-64/Solaris as an alternative to Windows. Windows admins are looking for a commercial alternative to Windows but they don't feel comfortable with Linux, this is where they (SUN) can fill the gap.
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
Brian Skiba, software analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, started coverage on SCO Group with a buy rating and a $45 price target. He said the Lindon, Utah, company is "a call option on a substantial lawsuit against IBM and the potential to capitalize on Linux."
And sadly investors are buying the load of crap. Look at the price/volume on Oct 15th and today. SCOX 5 Day chart
I'm sure Sun can turn themselves around (they make _really_ nice hardware, for example) but it will take a return to core competency.
I agree with Merrill Lynch's assessment of Sun:
I think the ML analyst has it. In an article I read a while back, McNealy said that Dell wasn't a competitor because they didn't sell a complete solution and only sold systems. He said Dell had a terrific parts-distribution business. Unfortunately, he's missed that Dell's distribution is a major driver of their business, and a key reason Dell is successful today (I'd rate Dell hardware at medium-to-high, for example.)
"IBM Sparc Series"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sun announced that Grid Engine software would be made available "an industry-accepted open source license". The targetted date for the open source release was last updated as being "early calendar 2001".
...and I can't explain why we would ever want to trust/buy Sun ever again.
So, I work at an University that had a preferred buying Sun servers back in the early to mid-1990 until Sun sales decided that quote requests for systems that would cost $50,000 to $75,000 wasn't worth returning our calls for. But back in 2000 our Sun sales rep. started explaining how Sun was willing to now work "really hard" to get our business back. I ended put pointing out that in the past Sun was busy put the "dot in dot com" and our business is that of a "dot E-D-U." Well, the Sun sales rep. goes into this whole song and dance that Sun wants to make amends with the educational market and that Sun thinks Gridware is what will make educational market grow and that Sun is willing to do ANYTHING to get educational business back including open sourcing Sun Gridware.
Sooo... I declaired that we would start buying Sun again when Sun made good on releasing Sun Gridware under an industry accepted open source license then we will start buying from Sun again. The Sun sales rep. left looking all happy that I would "back" Sun with such a declairation. So, early calendar 2001 passed, late calendar 2001 passed, early calendar 2002 passed, late calendar 2002 passed, early calendar 2003 passed... and no one from Sun can explain when industry accepted open source license Gridware is available under.
The meeting with the Sun sales rep. is two hours of my life I'd like back
I predict that by 2010 that SGI stock will be worth *MORE* than Sun.
Bottom line -- trust Sun only when you need promises printed on toilet paper.
Sun's in a lot of trouble, and a lot of it is because of their resistance to the proliferation of Linux. They also have an image problem and they sell (a lot of) underpowered, overpriced hardware. This should sound like mid-90s Apple, and the prescription for a fix is similar:
Development on Solaris is costing Sun a lot of money, and it's money they don't have to waste. Instead of spending R&D and support dollars on Solaris, they should spend that time and money on adding those few important technologies they have into Linux. Yes, this will put them under the GPL, but in return they get to vastly increase the size of their user base, get device support and performance improvements for free, and garner a lot of goodwill among users and developers.
Linux is probably just recently reached the maturity level (thanks in part to IBM, who figured this out a few years ago) where it could (with Sun's contributions) support their big hardware as well as Solaris does. The time to make the move is now.
(Apple example: they grabbed BSD and turned it into OS X. Brilliant move, as it saved them the waste of working on the whole OS and allowed them to leverage BSD's capabilities and concentrate on the parts that made OS X great.)
Sun has no chance, I repeat, no chance of competing long-term with Dell (and others) on Dell's playing field. The biggest reason is that Dell doesn't do research! Sun's already behind in the cost-cutting game from the start, and they can't hope to compete when they cannot leverage economies of scale either (on the SPARC).
There is a place for the SPARC, and it would be a shame to see it go. Sun's big machines (E10K range) are fantastic machines and Intel/AMD don't have any interest in helping Sun build machines to compete with their big customers. Ditto for IBM and the Power chips.
Unfortunately, the biggest purchasing cuts when the economy is weak come from big-iron orders, as companies try to make do with what they already have or press less-capable hardware into use. This is a cruel fact that Sun's competitors in this area (HP, IBM) are dealing with too. IBM has its consulting dominance and HP its printing/imaging cash-cow to fall back on, though; Sun has neither of those. They need to come up with some sort of profit-making group to get them through the lean times. (This, they'll have to come up with on their own. Put those R&D dollars to work!)
Sun can make money selling smaller boxes if they, like Apple, position themselves correctly in the market. Small boxes suffer from an inexorable downward price pressure. They have to make that Sun logo on the case worth something. The stories about the Ultra 10s are apocryphal -- very nice, expensive workstations that last about 9 months before requiring complete overhauls. That cannot happen. Sun is only going to have success in the new workstation market if they make great products that provide some compelling value for purchasers that justifies their price premium. Right now, they have lost that (and not just because they ship with Solaris).
(Apple example: all of their hardware since the original iMac.)
Sun is perceived by many in the industry, both customers and peers, and being a bunch of arrogant pricks. All of their salespeople are clueless assholes; McNealy is a myopic bozo who thinks he's competing with Microsoft while IBM, HP, and Dell eat his lunch; they're running off all of the famous people who work there (never a good sign!). So goes the perception.
Along with the business-strategy changes listed above, they have to get people to think about Sun in a positive light again. Don't piss off your customers. In the late 90s Sun was rolling in dotcom cash from their big-ticket purchases and started to act like it was better than its customers. Now, they're starved for business. The vision at t
Seriously, the OSS folks should start a collection (holding donations in escrow) along with other major vendors to purchase all the rights and code from SUN just in case they decide to tank.
I'd imagine that Apple, IBM, and the OSS community could produce a JVM for Windows as well.
It's better than M$ buying it just to kill it.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I disagree about "Java is boring". A lot of highly useful and highly profitable lines of business are "boring".
It seems that you do agree that Java is boring.
Profitability does not equal exciting.
COBOL is profitable for banking systems. COBOL is not exciting. Java is the new COBOL.
Hmm, maybe you should look again.
Base price PowerEdge 1750: $1,599
Base price PowerEdge 1600sc: $998
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
That is what you get with Sun.
If you can't afford the kind of support that Sun provides (no idiot reading an script in the other side of the phone) it is because your business is not worth it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Having a good 1U design hasn't been a bragging point since 2000. 1U boxes are now at the same level of commoditization as beige-box desktops. Even blades are becoming a commodity. I don't think blade designs have been a bragging point for at least a year now.
I knew the end was near when sun hired former Georgia CIO Larry Singer. He destroyed IT in Georgia and now he is doing the same to Sun.
It's too bad that Java is tied into such a flailing company. I hope they don't get "new management" that tries to "monitize" it.
That said, our school just got a lab full of Sun boxes in the CS building. They replaced a bunch of Linux machines. Everyone was shocked, and no one uses them.
I wanted to use them for some remote desktoppin' using VNC's built in webserver+java applet, and the browser on the sun machines (Netscape 4) didn't even hava java support!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I worked at Sun years ago. At the time, I was proud to be associated with that company-their Unix was good and the admiration of many of my peers. The basic problem though with Sun: It was the kind of company where is paid to be popular rather than right. Deviations from the pervailing world view there were a good way to not be popular.
Java? Well, I have to use it for a class I'm taking, but I can't say that technology excites me--stuff like www.mozart-oz.org seems to leave J2EE in the dust. (Mozart means that stuff like Reilable multi-cast is more or less transparent which simplifies a lot of stuff compared to Java's baroque design-you can do a lot more in Mozart with a lot less code).
Sparc is a joke-there just isn't a compelling technical reason to use sparc. What sun could do here-through some money to Chuck Moore-who has some really interesting chip technology(www.colorforth.com). Basically, Moore can put a lot of cpu's onto one chip(because Forth chips have a simple design). A lot of stuff suddenly gets much more simple--and much lower power(which is important for stuff like robotics). Sun won't go that way though-it doesn't fit into a cast-of-thousands mentality that has developed there--they'd rather suck on the government tit and bet on what Milton Friedman calls the "corporate subsidy" of H-1b to keep Sun alive.
Yeah, giving us Open Office and a fast JVM for linux. The bastards...
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
McNealy, Ellison, Jobs - every one of them would behave exactly like Gates does if they had the same market position. They are all profit-first, stop-at-nothing, fuck-the-customer-if-you-have-to, market-domination-is-the-goal corporate bastards; don't ever forget that. The only place free software makes it into their 'vision' is as a steppingstone to monopoly on their terms.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Last night I booted up my SPARCStation 5 at home and it was still slower than my Athlon gaming box, particularly when running Mozilla. Also, it still doesn't run my Linux binaries. Therefore, I have to agree with the Collective Wisdom of Slashdot that Sun is dead!
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
The SPARC processor is slow, much slower than the Pentium line. Sun cannot possibly afford to spend what it takes to keep up with Intel.
The only way Sun has been able to keep competitive is to throw more porcessors into the same box. That is an old trick and a game that two can (and do) play.
As soon as Linux arrived there was no future for Solaris at the low end. Universities are not going to buy roomfulls of SPARC boxes when they can get a faster and cheaper box from Dell.
Linux has shifted the center of gravity of the UNIX world to the Intel processor platform. Before Linux the Intel Unices were either pretty feeble or so pricey that you might as well buy a real workstation.
Now the center of gravity has shifted Sun is on the wrong side of the cost amortization curve. They are trying to recoup their R&D costs on a shrinking revenue base so there is less for them to invest in making their product better meaning that the revenue base falls even further.
Oh and the fact that half the engineers in sun spend more time thinking about Microsoft's strategy than about Sun's is certainly not helping.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Many people have complained about the experience of using Solaris from the desktop environment to the compiler (originally none) to the editor. In each case you've chosen to fix the problem by bundling the best-of-breed open source option thereby increasing compatibility while decreasing cost. It's time to go all the way.
The Debian project has been working on abstracting the GNU/ from the Linux by porting the distribution to other kernels. It's time for the Solaris kernel to toss off its ugly Unix wrappings and become the apex of the open source world: GNU/Solaris. With one exception: it shouldn't be free.
PC hardware is largely commodity junk and the Linux kernel still has trouble scaling to massive architectures. Consider this scenario: a small company uses PCs running Linux; as the company grows, so does its server requirements, but all its applications are running on GNU/Linux. This is where Sun steps in: all their applications can be easily, even seamlessly, ported to massive SPARC servers running GNU/Solaris. Both Sun and the open source community concentrate on their strengths, and the customers have an upgrade path: everybody wins!
Or you could stick with your administrator-hostile Unix distribution and your overpriced workstations until Bill and Linus fight over who gets to eat your sweetbread. It's all up to you.
Dude, it's been open sourced for over 2 years now.
http://gridengine.sunsource.net/project/grideng
I was in the solaris camp for many years telling everyone how cpu power isn't everything. Well.. it helps. So does design of the system and so on. Sparc III's are nice and I'm looking forward to the Sparc IV's.
Here is an experience that changed my POV. I was installing Oracle 8 on a Dell p2650 running RedHat 7.3. From begin install to Database is mounted and available took about 10 minutes. The same installation on any sunfire took around 40 minutes or longer!
Naturally people thought I was kidding or did something wrong. After several tests it was concluded that the Sun boxes just couldn't muster the hoursepower to compete with these Dell systems. Eventually we started purchasing more and more of these boxes (all duals).
Migrating data with the Sun boxes can take us a few weeks at best. We did the same thing on these new systems. A week. 5 days and we were done.
As much as I love Sun and Solaris I simply don't see them in business in a few years because they were simply unwilling to change. That kind of thinking nearly killed IBM.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
The old Sparc 10 and 20's had insufficient power and air flow. We saw mostly drive and CPU failures in those. Higher rates of failure in boxes stuffed with memory/cards/2 drives. The problems were mostly heat related.
The machines with the fewest failures for us are the Ultra2, Ultra60, and E450 boxes. The E4500 servers have been stable once the CPU ecache fiasco was taken care of. However, we still see memory modules failures at the rate of about one every 2 years. The Ultra2 is slow by today's standard, but it was and continues to be bullet-proof. If the hardware shows anything, Sun was at its peak when it built the Ultra2.
We have around 400 Sun workstations/servers deployed for this department (non IS). And like everyone else, price/performance has forced us away from Sun. Linux appears to meet our increasing data crunching needs. The OpenMosix cluster has entered the building...
Somalia? Isn't that where the US got its ass kicked and slunk out with its tail between its legs? Guess his God wasn't so big after all...
However, this single biggest problem also has an easy solution. Sun merely needs to jettison its SPARC processor R&D team and to adopt the SPARC64-V and the SPARC64-VI. The latter is a dual-core chip just like the well-regarded Power4. Sun could easily redesign its server boards within a month to accept the SPARC64 chips.
The SPARC64-V and SPARC64-VI are radically different from the UltraSPARC III. The former were designed and built almost exclusively by native talent (i. e. Japanese citizens). The UltraSPARC III was built by H-1B workers because Sun, Intel, and other companies claim that they cannot find enough native talent (i. e. American citizen) who are good enough -- even during a period 8% unemployment in Silicon Valley.
The issue here is mismanagement at Sun. Specifically, the management up to Scott McNealy himself refuses to adopt the SPARC64-V/VI. Why would any company refuse to adopt a processor that outperforms its own processor, that is readily available, that executes an identical instruction set , and that would immediately boost the performance of all the servers sold by said company? Why? The answer is deliberate mismanagement at Sun.
Worse. At the higher-mid end arena Sun is behind Fujitsu PrimePOWER. Sun's never quite made it to the real high end.
Fujitsu PrimePOWER machines run Solaris. And they run significantly faster. Go look at spec.org. Go check out the CPU designs - if you want a SPARC processor that does > 1GHz and has out-of-order execution you don't go Sun, you go Fujitsu. They also have instruction retry done in hardware.
At the low end? There's Dell. And if AMD doesn't die there'll be Opteron servers (and these + Linux look very dangerous to Sun - esp since IBM's selling Opteron servers too...).
For alternative high ends - try IBM. Or if your problem can be split up - try lots of commodity boxes.
...you must pay an additional $240 (for the v65x). This price increases relative to price of the server.
At least Dell now has an online discussion forum free to everyone, even non-customers.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
than 2 CPUs in 1U. Not only do you get less granularity, but the 2U cases are just more natural to work with than 1U. You can actually use half-height PCI cards!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
um, Sun dont sponsor ant. There are no active Ant committers from sunw, no direct funding. They do give Apache some server hardware for which everyone is grateful, but so have Apple.
James Duncan Davidson did invent Ant while at Sun, but now he has left them, & he isnt active anyway. The core Ant dev team (myself included) are end users fixing their own personal build problems in a way that other people can reuse.
As to why Sunw still say they are involved in Ant on the sunsource site, I dont know. Maybe cos Ant is so critical in Java projects -right up there with JUnit, maybe because they feel parentage rights gives them credit. But notice the welcome page of Ant1.6 has a special 'call to inaction' to sun, which says 'stop moving the entry points in tools.jar' around. Changes Sun make between java versions often end up causing us to release point releases of Ant just to keep everyone's build going. Sigh.
You didn't even select REMOTE MANAGEMENT for the Dell. It is another $400. This brings the Dell within $500 of Sun. Also, Dell doesn't specify whether their server offers dual SCSI channels to the external port, which Sun does. You are not comparing Apples to Apples, here. You are a troll.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I spent 3 years as a Solaris Admin. I spent more time working than doing bullshit 'putting out fires' crap.
...
I've spent the last year as a Windows Admin doing bullshit 'putting out fires' crap, and tremendously less time working.
I love Sun hardware - serial console rocks. Couple that with something simple like a Cisco 2511RJ and instant console server (even ssh'able into). I'd much rather deal with SunSolve and Sun Support than flaky x86 hardware.
But it all comes down to 'price' and 'cost',
which most people just look at the bottom line,
and not the required time to service and support the machines.
ramble ramble ramble
... Because the base config for a PE 1600sc is lower than the PE 1750 base config? If you configure both to the exact same config as the Sun, the PE 1750 is actually cheaper.
;)
You know, I would expect someone on a troll^H^H^H^H crusade against "Slashdot idiots making invalid comparisons", you'd have at least the minimal mental skills to configure something on Dell's site and read the resulting price. No, really. It's easy.
But then, hey, maybe we've identified the ideal niche market for Sun: People who can't even figure out how to configure something on Dell's site. Hey, maybe Sun's gonna make a big profit, after all
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Fuck Solaris - Use Linux (Ok if that's your preference) .Net (Cause MS is plays so nice)
Fuck Sun - Buy Intel (Cause they're not a monopoly)
Fuck Java - Use
Jesus, what the fuck happened here? This used to be a community of midly consistent arguments, but now it seems to be people looking to bitch about anything not on TechTV. Go back to jerking off. Asshats.
The problem with Sun is its R&D budget. In general, research is a privileged activity. The perils of capitalism being what they are, only a monopoly with "free money" pouring in can throw billions on R&D. Two examples -
1. For a long long time upto the 90s, Bell Labs was one of the largest research centers. Why ? Well, AT&T was a virtual monopoly, and everytime you made a phonecall, about 60 cents per dollar was "free money", that went into supporting R&D at Bell Labs.
2. Microsoft - Out of every $499 Office CD, probably $400 is "free money". For every $299 you pay for a seat of Windows XP, MS gets say $200 "free money".
What is "free money" ? Any revenue that accrues after the actual cost of producing the product has been paid for. eg. If you factor in the cost of making an 8 oz can of pepsi, filling it with sugared water, shipping it on a truck, getting it to customer, it probably amortizes to say 20 cents per can. You pay a dollar, so there's 80% free money! No wonder the PEP stockholders are so happy.
What does this have to do with SUNW ? Well, Sun doesn't get a lot of free money, so having a billion dollar R&D budget is silly - that kind of freemoney is simply not coming in. The kind of pie-in-the-sky research that Sun's engaged in eg. distributed computing such as Javaspaces, writing an operating system in Java aka JavaOS etc. should be engaged by fully funded government labs and fatcats like the NSF and MIT, not a company that is accountable to shareholders.
Sounds cruel, but this is the reality - let Sun first sell plenty of boxes and generate free money, then they can spend $1B doing research on academic/esoteric/theoretical topics.
lol Are you Scott McNealy that you can know in advance what Sun is gonna do?
Are you Scott McNealy...
No, but he is one of the business people who "gets it" from the raping-customers-blind-is-a-bad-business-model department. I know of no significant data lock-in regarding Sun's products, which is much more than anyone can say about Microsoft or IBM. McNealy isn't an antagonist, regardless of people's opinions about Sun's business strategies and price/performance competitiveness.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Why doesn't anyone in sales at Sun know this?
Way to go, moderators !!!!
(morons)
Why not just:
1) Focus on Blade Servers using whatever proc (MIPS, Transmeta, Intel, Sparc - whatever sells)
2) Push Sun-rays for clients; handles everything 99% of people want to do on a computer - plus holds a Java card!!!!
3) Embrace open-source software! Acquire JBoss and push OpenOffice and MadHatter - many a burned customer is weary of De-win-tel; make a viable alternative!
4) Decide the fate of Sparc
-OR-
Merge with IBM...
Rishi Chopra
www.rishichopra.org
Sun is really missing the boat. The fact is that they have the best commercial version of UNIX in Solaris the most popular development language in Java and a thriving hardware platform in UltraSparc.
What the hell is the problem?...Perception!!. Through lousy PR, Advertising and Mismanagement Sun is imploding.
Suggest they do the following:
1) Solaris is the only OS they need, release workstation and server versions of Solaris for Sparc and Intel. Work more closely with third party vendors.
2) Rearchitect Java from the ground up and simplify. Java has more wrong with it then right but no one will admit this. As an OOP language, Smalltalk is far better. Sun could take a lesson or two from Squeak Stop trying to make Java all things to all people. It's a waste of time and effort.
3) I love their computers and think they could do more here. They need to realize that they can sell low-end versions of Ultrasparc to the average consumer if their prices are reasonable and they back it up with strong applications, technical support, and marketing. Yes, they can branch out of the server room and onto the desktop.
4) Get a decent Advertising and PR firm for christ's sake!.
5) Linux is not the enemy but another platform, that is all. Those that want to make it more than that are just as bad as the Java zealots.
this is a troll.
>National healthcare will be run with the fairness of the IRS and the efficiency of the DMV.
:)
at least you admit it's coming!
-pyrrho
but that doesn't mean a lot of people didn't get reamed. The machines you mention populate the server room. Then engineers got Ulta 10's for their workstations. These engineers would have been better off with Solaris or even Linux or possibly even a Windows machine! I understand that these were Sun's attempt to reach down in the market, I know, I look inside and see IDE drives. They were cheap for sun boxes. But they were still twice a similar Lintel machine.
Another problem is that cheap commodity harward in clusters can easily get the mission critical statistics of an expensive premium brand that keeps running... but the cluster has so many advantages, after all, people have multiple Suns work together for failover and load ballancing anyway.
Sun's tanks are not much more of an advantage than their lemons. I'm sad to see this.
-pyrrho
Lets put Steven M's comments about Sun to the test. He see's everything at Sun needs to be changed and the company becomming increasingly irrelevant. Should we believe him? Clearly his own company doesn't even agree since they didn't and haven't downgraded Sun since his letter came out. Why people keep quoting this guy I haven't a clue.
Another simple test. If it is so clear that Sun is old news and doomed why are people so keen to write about it? Afterall how much do people even mention, say, SGI anymore?
Sun's real challenge is now executing. If they can get people on board for a complete enterprise line of software for $100/head/yr they're set. If their chip-multithreading processors work. They're set.
The only *real* problem Sun has right now is being at the wrong stage of product cycles to bring the huge $$. A year from now if things haven't changed then it's game over.
The only chance SUN has for a future is without McNealy. Its time to shed SPARC, acquire Borland, Sitraka and a few others and start running a real business.
The author is EXATCLY right. This is precisely what SUN needs to do. Dammit McNealy - get over yourself, leave SUN and get out of the way.
Remote management... how about connecting to the X server or SSH'ing in. You must work for Sun.
Really, go to dell.com-> medium to large businesses and check your prices. Enterprise customers right.
s px ?c=us&l=en&oc=pe1750pad&cs=555
PE 1750 with 2.4 GHz Xeon and 512 MB RAM 36 GB w/o GBE $ 3714
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.a
The only person full of shit is you. For companies with more than 200 people dell is far more expensive than sun hardware. Same is true for software where BEA and IBM charge $30,000 per cpu for enterprises.
You need to understand the game before you go price things.
For enterprises Sun v60x is cheaper than any similar dell box period.
Oops posted anonymously by accident. need the karma
s px ?c=us&l=en&oc=pe1750pad&cs=555
Really, go to dell.com-> medium to large businesses and check your prices. Enterprise customers right.
PE 1750 with 2.4 GHz Xeon and 512 MB RAM 36 GB w/o GBE $ 3714
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.a
The only person full of shit is you. For companies with more than 200 people dell is far more expensive than sun hardware. Same is true for software where BEA and IBM charge $30,000 per cpu for enterprises.
You need to understand the game before you go price things.
For enterprises Sun v60x is cheaper than any similar dell box period.
look again go to Dells site. Click on medium to large business and then price your servers.
The PE1750 with a 2.4 Ghz Xeon is $3714 starting.
For buisness with 200 on more employees dell is much much more expensive than Sun.
All of dells discounts evaporate at that time. Well agreed Sun doesn't differentiate between individuals, small business and large enterprises. But your post is way misinformed and incorrect.
A better way to say what you say is dell is cheaper than sun for small businesses because of all the massive discounts it puts out on it's sites.
I am sure sun offers similar discounts but not publically.
Anyway you slice it the v60x is cheaper than dell's lowest price offering in that market for enterprises (meaning companies with 200 or more people).
You will find Sun marketing material in professional IT journals, at trade shows etc. They don't, in general advertise to the general public, because only a tiny proportion of the general public are in the position to sign PO's
The question is if the executives signing the POs read IT publications or attend trade shows.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
was a failure to use ECC in big memory machines in the data center. DOn't know what they use today - no longer relevant to me, but more than several big financial houses found that a Call Phone was enough to cause undetected data errors on their big financial/trading servers. Sun would grudgingly correct, perhaps confess only under NDA, and financial guys, who thought numbers were kind of important, would think about Wintel for the next upgrade. During late 90's Sun did not seem to think this was a structural problem. . .