Slashdot Mirror
Sun's Bold New Ad Campaign
Celeritas writes "Sun is making some noise over their latest x64server entries by doing a fly by over Dell's HQ yesterday. A few pictures were snapped to capture the event. Sun has continued the offensive by running some interesting ads as well as designing some that were rejected due to the controversial content or as Sun calls them 'bold ad concepts'"
I guess it's better than driving by in a stretched Cooper Mini, anyway.
... for Dell Computer Corporation, anyway.
McNealy is sure paying a lot of money to keep Michael's name in the big lights.
Dropping leaflets is the step before shock and awe.
"Watch out Dell!?" That's a threat if I ever heard one..
Dell followed up by sending a B-52 on a bomb run over Sun headquarters. Sun was not available for comment.
From the text of that ad, you'd think they had -just- now started selling AMD64 servers. I have several Sun AMD64 servers sitting in my server room, and have for quite a while now. Granted, they're just reference boxes -- but they do say Sun on them.
Scott McNealy is officially insane.
We've got a bigger dick than Dell. or Buy a Sun, get a free blow job.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Didn't Quark run a bunch of ads that maligned Adobe's product and basically made Quark come off like a bunch of insecure jerks?
When you have to insult your competition, you insinuate that you are losing to them. Sun looks like they are losing to Dell, which they may very well be, I don't know. But this ad campaign cements that idea.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Did you notice the ads that didn't make it all have a different energy savings %? One says 56% energy savings, one says 66%, the other says 63%.
Why not just go with something like "A bagillion times the engery savings over Hell - oh, tee-hee - we mean 'Dell'".
Seems like SUN let their middle-school aged kids run their marketing department. "Studies show that DELL sucks"? Bitchin'? Ass-whooping?
Maybe some nascar fans too?
On a side note, it's quite interesting to see SUN, who used to be *the* big player do anything to grab some press.
I know jack about marketing, but this stinks of desperation.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Is Sun trying to do what politicians do and focus on negative advertising campaigns?
Bradley Holt
Perhaps Sun could learn to promote their products on their own merits, rather than insulting a competitor.
Want a new computer?
What don't you all just go to Dell!
Easy as Hell! (whoops!)
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Nowadays when sending in an application to a giant software or hardware firm it's important to include a copy of your pilot's license and logbook. CS students may want to look into taking flying lessons on the side.
But don't most server admins know the benefits, and won't they have already done the research on what they want to buy?
You think server admins usually get to choose what to buy?
I don't think so.
It looks to me the ads are probably targeted at getting the mindshare of PHB types.
First thought was from my good friend Mr. Travolta (not really, not legal mess please):
... and deliver from time to time. Jonathan, at times, seems a little too quick to shoot that mouth off, but damn, sometimes they do come up with some rock solid stuff. At least they have some humor in their bold statements. Makes me wanna see if the balls match the hype.
"...'atsa bol' statement."
i've always kinda liked Sun (grew up on 'em) and even when things seem dark, Sun and Co. come up with something that is pretty damn bold
Dell is crap.
http://quarkvsindesign.com/news/archives/2005/03/q uarks-postcards-from-the-edge/
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I'm gonna go wash the taste of those out of my mouth now...
You know what?
And they're not the first ones to try and embarrass Sun on Sun's turf. Galaxy-Class servers. Gene Roddenberry is rolling in his grave. Folks, this is a 1U, 2-64 CPU machine. Nice. But just wait a short while and multi-cores will blow this stuff away-- before the end of the year you can get four (then more) 64-bit cores in a 1U, and stuff it with enough RAM to make a real difference. Please watch the Tom and Dick Smothers-- oops I mean Scott and Jonathon-- Show for more details. And it's Schwartz playing bass.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
-Not yellow box, but Sun love you long time.
-Dell Sucks: Sun swallows. You owe us one. Buy our servers.
-No, that's not IBM biting my ass. DELL SUCKS.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Wtf?
This is plain ol server gear. Sun is very late to the commodity x86 platform and they want to trump it up? Sure the product has a slight differentiation with AMD64, but I know that HP has AMD64 offerings in 4 and 8 way systems.
Sun should have released cost effective gear like the 240, 440, 20z, 40z and these new boxen 3 years ago instead of milking customers for 50 grand (CDN) a pop for 420R servers.
Thats awesome. Think of it as the normal employee. If he were to walk out after a long day and see that, he would just have to chuckle. It would make his day!
I think silly advertizing is a lot better than Microsoft's way of kicking you right out the door. There are a lot of things that Sun could have done worse, so I favor them doing something that might amuse some people.
I spec and purchase all my servers. well, me or the other sysadmin do.
Wouldn't work at a place where the PHB made technology purchasing decisions.
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
Err, have you NOT been reading slashdot for the last couple of days? This is what these ads are all about. AMD Opteron boxes for cheaper than Dell sells em and faster as well. New designs by Andy Bechtolsteim (sic), who is widely regarded as one of the best server designers...
Oh, and I think these boxes are supported by Sun for Windows, Linux (Redhat and Suse) and of course Solaris.
And of course they push Solaris. Some people actually think that it MIGHT be a better Unix that Linux (Moderators, you didnt read that...)
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
I understand these are just 'drafts' of ads, but they can't even decide on numbers. "50% faster, 66% more energy efficient" "In independent lab tests versus Dell, engineers concluded it saved 56% in energy costs" "About 63% more energy than the new industry standard Sun x64 server" Come on, is it 56%, 63% or 66%? At least make all of your ads say the same thing.
The yutzes over at Sun's marketing team don't even know what their talking about. What's an "x64" server? Do they mean "64-bit" or have they shaved x86 down to size?
More
Sun Microsystems is about to make you its bitch!
(Because we know how well *that* campaign is remembered.)
20 comments, and the images are still available. I guess the new servers are ass-kickin machines.
PLEASE for the love of god let there be a photoshopcontest
"Scott McNealy is going to make Dell his bitch"
Worked well for John Romero, I'm sure it would work great for Sun.
I'm just surprised they didn't call the server line "Xtreeeme64".
Sometimes my arms bend back.
How much will they lie in this ad campaing?
The "Ultra 20 for 29.95 per month" offer they advertized isn't offered. You get charged 360.00 per year not the 29.95/mth they advertize.
Why should we belive Sun in this case?
What price sheet have you been looking at and from what year?
... all of Sun's x86 servers are certified to run Linux. They wouldn't bother if they thought that Linux sucks.
A Sun Fire X2100 starts at $745 LIST. Go through a reseller and you're guaranteed to get discounts on top of that. These prices that UNHEARD OF for Sun. They have completely slashed their prices down to levels that I never thought I would ever see. I've been working with Sun hardware for 10 years and I've been cursing their outrageous prices for nine of those years as I saw Intel after Intel replace numerous Sun workstations and servers. I've had no excuse to curse Sun's prices in the past 12 months.
If we were talking about the Sun of the past, you'd be absolutely correct. They charged outrageous prices because your were buying the Sun name and the Sun R&D. That arrogance died very recently. Look at any of their x86 offerings, like the Ultra 20, which is also available for less than $900 list.
Half the quality? They offer a 3 year warranty on all hardware. Every other vendor I've had to deal with wants a service contract ($$$) for that amount of coverage. I doubt they'd give that warranty if they thought the quality was such that the systems wouldn't last at least that long. Otherwise, they'd expect to lose a shitload of money to spare parts and customer service calls, which would not be a wise move at all.
Oh, by the way
It's blatantly obvious that you don't have a clue what you're talking about or you just want to bash on Sun for the sake of bashing on Sun.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
That porno-mag style interview with the SunFire server near the fire place is very interesting - more proof that porn and technology go hand in hand. What kind of website would reliable, beefy server hardware be more suited to than a pr0n operation?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
I, for one, welcome our new bitchin' Sun X86 overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground ass-whoopin' caves.
The Sun Opteron boxes are also Microsoft certified for Windows 2003. That had to make McNealy chafe.
-30-
It does nothing for the consumer (because you'd assume Dell employees would have Dell servers)...and even if a consumer caught a glimpse of it, all I saw at first was a huge black and bold "DELL".
Dell, the name Osama Bin Laden swears by.
When you buy Dell, it makes the baby Jesus cry. You don't want to make the baby Jesus cry, do you?
Hey Dell, we just fucked your girlfriend.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Certainly, firms can survive and even thrive like that, but for Sun it is surely bad news.
If they want Dell's market, they have to acknowledge Dell. If Sun just puts out an x86-64 server and says "Here it is", most departmental admins won't pay attention to it. The name Sun scream high end server to those people. By going after Dell in their ads, these departmental admins will see it as an ad targeted to them. They might see it as Sun making a server for their needs.
Say hello to my little sig.
I spec and purchase all my servers. well, me or the other sysadmin do.
Wouldn't work at a place where the PHB made technology purchasing decisions.
Fortunately for you, you are lucky for now, but unfortunately, it does not seem to be the norm.
"Windows Server 2003...not"?
Those were *hilarious*, though.
"What's the matter with you people?! Haven't you ever seen a bandicoot before?"
Ooops. Thought they were dual-single cores.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I always buy my computer equpipment based on flyovers. Whoever does the best job of buzzing the other guy gets my business.
This the way that I figure it. Everyone knows that kids are good at computers. And everyone knows that geeks lack social skills. Heck, I'm a geek and I lack them.
So it follows that a company that comes off like a bunch of adolescent jerks would have really good stuff.
All sarcasm aside, I haven't had a sun server in a long time, but my old sparc 5 boxes were really great. Extremely solid and reliable. Their new stuff probably is pretty good.
But all this ad campaign does is make me hope that the free java stack comes sooner rather than later. If it's open, no one can break it, and these guys aren't inspiring confidence.
Finally, whenever I see something like this, I always think of Thomas Frank's book "The Conquest of Cool." It's about how corporations use counter culture and rebellion to sell themselves, and the cultural significance of their eagerness to do so. It's a good read.
Maybe if sun had a really kick ass spokesrebel -- like scammer and z-dog. Or maybe if the ads were 10% more proactive. That would be awesomely outrageous.
I mean, the guys running sun are just like me -- they're getting bitchslapped by the man, and so am I. Only they have their own jets.
Wouldn't work at a place where the PHB made technology purchasing decisions.
Then you would not be influenced by any ad, it is then not targetted at you but at PHBs who do make decisions.
There's a part of their market that they have to get with technical merit and a part that they have to get with publicity.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
Good for you. But really, so fucking what?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The pic is photoshopped (the 'look out dell' part).. or gimped
Viral Marketing
Why? I think that's a really brilliant move! That means that Sun systems are the only systems out there that are certified to run Linux, Windows, and Solaris x86. That's has the potential to be an awesome marketing tool that no other server manufacturer can make.
As I mentioned in a different Slashdot story, one of the local Windows admins got a loaner Sun system with Windows installed on it and he was very impressed with its speed and stability. That can open a whole, new market base for Sun. And even if those servers don't run Solaris now, who's to say that they won't in the future as current systems are put into end-of-life or replaced and therefore can serve other functions? Now that we've moved the data to a bigger server, what should we do with this one? Let's put that Solaris on it and see what we can do with it. Hey, it's a very distinct possibility.
Personally, I think that it's about time that McNealy swallowed a bit of that arrogant pride of his. It's been a long time coming. As a Sun admin for over 10 years I'm very excited about this new direction that Sun has been taking. Let's hope it's not too little, too late.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
See Inside Jack now.
You have to like Jack's T-shirt - "No, I will not fix your computer"!
Where can I get one of those?
http://xbmodder.us/sun/approved.html http://xbmodder.us/sun/pdf A mirror of all the PDFs.
Shouldn't that be "WATCH OUT, DELL"?
I am forced to conclude these marketing shops hire chimps as editors.
I love that feeling I get when a company gets some righteous 'tude... just gives me goosebumps. Screw being nice, be RUDE !!!! Plus, in the rule of advertising its perfect, no matter how you do it be remembered !
I call computer-illiteracy job security
Reinds me of the story of an aged heavyweight boxer hurling insults at the new kid in town rather than retiring gracefully. Has all the 'dot in dot-com' peer of microsoft and the top tier, now dealing with the likes of Dell (commodity vendors). Whats next, Sun v/s WalMart brand PCs or would it be Sun v/s some small time software vendor
What are you talking about?
The GGP implied that it's not really the sysadmins that can purchase the servers anyway, not the sysadmins. The GP replied "Hey, I'm a sysadmin, and I can!".
So fucking what?
So he, and I, can fucking purchase fucking sun fucking equipment is fucking what. What's _YOUR_ fucking point?
If marketing didn't matter, then DEC would probably still be around as DEC. They were very good with engineering, but bad at marketing and mad at management too.
IBM sells servers cheaper, sure.. but they sell everything in bundles, especially to large clients which is basically the server market.
I've recently entered the hell known as the DB2/WebFear/AIX bundle. I was forced into it in a shared environment in a fairly large corporation.
My other internal customers all use WL, whatever DB they choose (mainly Oracle and MySQL), and a mix of Solaris and Linux.
The side that has a choice loves the new servers. The side that is all IBM in comparison is, for lack of a better word, pathetic.
Of course, they both gripe about the choice of M$ OSes as being a filthy scheme to make more money!
that $745 is sans drive and OS - $1295 for the 80GB SATA & Solaris.
That's still half the price of the low-end xServe. Hmmm....
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Bet your bottom dollar That tomorrow... there'll be sun... Just thinking about tomorrow.. Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow 'Til there's none. When I'm stuck with a dell that's gray and slovenly... I just stick out my chin and grin and say: Oh, the new sun'll come out to-mor-row So you got to hang on till tomorrow come what may Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow You're always a day away. The sun'll come out to-mor-row bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow... there'll be sun!
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
it's getting them loads of press and that is exactly what it was designed to do.
Does anyone have anymore information on this specific Sun x4100 (And I assume other models) feature?
Features include full remote KVM functionality with video and media redirection. System administrators can access the service processor via the dedicated management Ethernet port.
I'll tell you what, for $150 (Service processor), and for the total price of these servers. I'm very tempted to grab a few of these and try them out - if Sun can get the message out, these prices are unbelievable from Sun, I think they've just won me back as a customer - if this $150 service processor is remote KVM compatible, hell yeah! Sun here we come.
Welcome to Japanese airlines your pilot Mr. Kamokazi will be serving. Bonzai ! Dellson !
Sun is a really cool brand to have on your computer and it's great to have a three year warranty. The problem though is that it's cheaper just buying a dual system per year for the price of a single Sun system.
No entry found for stupidism.
Did you mean stupid ism?
Suggestions:
stupid ism
stupid-ism
Stundism
stupidest
stylitism
stapedius
stipites
statism
stapedes
stapedes'
Surely it's an indication of the fact that Sun has lost it's engineering focus and is now being driven by marketing people.
I dunno, being driven by marketing has worked out pretty well for Dell.
unless that system which dies in a year goes down with unbacked up data on it or at a very inconvenient time costing millions of dollars, i'd hate to be the guy on record suggesting we try to save a few grand and costing the company a $50 million contract or worse
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Even me?
I'm pricing 2U & 3U rack-mount servers to run Linux.
:(
My desired system is a dual 27x Opteron with 4-6 hot-swap SATA drive bays. What's with all the SCSI out there? There doesn't seem to be any brand-name dual-CPU rack servers out there which have a SATA option.
Yes, I know SCSI is much faster, has a fraction of the CPU overhead that PATA has, and has been hot-swap capable since probably before I learnt how to read.
Perhaps I'm trying to stretch my budget too thin, but the best I can do is build my own from components using 3Ware SATA RAID.
In my limited experience with SCSI, I've actually seen two occasions where having all the disks on the one channel was a bad idea. In both cases, a faild disk managed to lock the entire bus so that none of the good disks could be accessed - rendering the live running failure tolerance of RAID useless.
So, the idea of cheap SATA drives with their independant connections to the RAID adpater appeals to me.... but this doesn't seem to be an option on any of the brand-names
Benchmark studies prove that Dell sucks
Shit, I'm sold.
But seriously, I love Sun hardware. That thing takes a beating and keeps on ticking. The old e220r and e240r have never given me trouble (*knock on wood*)
But Dells are really cheap. I was told (candidly) by an IBM vendor that they just can't compete with Dell in the inexpensive server market. And I suppose that neither can Sun.
I have plenty of Dell servers also, and I've never had a major problem with them. The 24 hours support contract gets you replacement parts really quick. But I keep a couple of hot-spares machines just in case one of them decides to go down in a big way.
The only complain I have with Dell support is when they try to walk you thru their support script even when you have identified the problem and is rather obvious that a replacement is needed. ("Yes, the hard drive is making grinding noises and smoke is coming out of it... why do you need me to run the diagnostics program?")
No sig
Isn't everyone mad at management?
But given Sun's current situation, maybe they'd be better off if instead of looking into bold new ad concepts, they started looking into bold new computing concepts? You know... products? They don't seem nearly as interested in being groundbreaking and risk-taking with the products as they do with their ads.
I mean... have you looked at what the new, bold new move they're advertising with these ads? It's... and AMD64 server. Pretty much the same as the stuff they were doing with sparc before, only now it has AMD64s instead of Sparcs. Does this sound like leading or following to you?
Well, they've got YOUR attention, you've read the ads, you've been informed about the performance of their product, and now techies from all over the world are thinking and talking about their servers. Right now. You're one of them. To that degree, their marketing has worked. The question is, next time you need a server, considering you've been reading about these ads, are you going to remember their product? I think so.
yeppers .. check out:. jsp
http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/x2100/benchmarks
and ever think you'd see this?
http://www.sun.com/service/support/windows/
was when they announced the Ultra's. Once again, Sun made a remarkable turn around, and climbed to heights previously unseen. It was the third time Sun had returned from near death. Maybe this will be the forth. Sun has consistently built some of the best platforms out there, time to shed another skin and do it again.
Do some research, over time Sun has done more for Open Source than any other company.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
i needed some low-end servers for testing/development on windows 2003 in our satallite locations. i was going to grab some dells, but the fire 2100's with a memory upgrade were a much better deal i think. so i just ordered 3 :)
Sun would probably say AMD64, since that is what they sell, except that they also want you to run Solaris on your non-Sun boxes, which may have 64 bit Intel x86 processors. They may also want to avoid burning bridges, in case Intel processors become more compelling in the future.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Sun has a winning hand here. It is that simple.
... you can see why Sun has no problem mentioning Dell in the ads.
The AMD64 platform is a better platform than Intel's at the moment, in every way. And on top of that, Sun has a hell of a lot more experience in building bulletproof hardware. When you factor in Solaris & a lower price tag
You can spin this whatever way you want, but I'm looking forward to seeing Sun trash the company that brought us the "Dell dude". Dell can go back to selling their overpriced PCs at Christmas, and the people who actually run the important servers in the world, doing billion dollar transactions, have a clear path to keep the Windows/Dell bozos out of the server room in the basement of the bank.
Dell has had 64-bit servers for a long while
vodka, straight up, thank you!
"Benchmark studies show that Dell sucks"
Hahaha! Wooo... *Ahem*.
...
*wipes tear off cheek*
It's a shame those ones didn't fly. Because they're damn humorous, if you ask me.
I'd love to see Dell's CEO open a magazine to see that ad on a page. Hehehe...
*wipes more tears and keeps laughing hysterically*
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
They seem to have a bigger problem: The only sales point they're making is that they use less electricity than the competition. Since when has that meant anything to institutional (or home) purchasers?
Wah!
I have to second the motion here. Sun's pricing of late is jaw-dropping. My *only* complaint--and the primary reason a great deal of the Sun hardware I have in service is still in service (aside from the fact that it's EXTREMELY reliable)--is that Sun patently refuses to supply OpenBSD with the necessary documentation for supporting the newest Sun hardware.
;-)
Grrrr. If I could run OpenBSD on the latest Sun offerings, I'd snap up Sun gear like it was going out of style. (No comments from the peanut gallery on that one, please.
In the mean time the little ol' SPARCstations and Netras are chugging along doing their various tasks without a peep.
Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
Michael Dell: I'm trying to make computers for kids to take to college.
Scott McNealy: Your mom goes to college.
The opposite is that crappy products need a LOT of flogging, and indirectly at that. Witness all the "Amazing Discoveries" quasi-show infomercials. And perhaps the Sun ads.
uhh, actually I have a full tank in both of my SUVs, my car AND my truck. So, I am not gas thirsty at all, I have plenty!! Thanks for caring though....
Watch the language for heaven's sake, there might be some kids reading.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
I gotta sue sun...
Ive been saying 'Dell Sucks' way before it was cool!
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
29.95 * 12 = 359.40
Are you really complaining about 60 cents?
Give me a break.
Where are my modpoints when I need 'em! ;-)
Paul B.
Take a look around. Most Server Admins wouldn't know jack or shit if both landed on their nose and started singing the Macarena. You know the old saw about how half of all people are below average, well, that applies to Server Admins too.
Research? HAHA! What Server Admin has time for research? They are just trying to find out how they can be left alone to surf Slashdot and IM their dorkie Server Admin friends all day.
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/rejected/rhymes_magazine_ page_LEres.PDF
What possible value do I get from a comparison between 1U and 4U machines? I don't buy 4U machines just to crunch numbers... there's room to expand... more slots, more bays...
I'm confused.
Why not borrow from Raid bug spray?
"Kills Dell Dead."
and here's some others:
"Dell. Makes a better fertiliser"
"Sun spanks the competition"
"Sun powns noobs"
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
They've been flying around here too... Meh... Not sure who they're aiming to impress...
Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
"Sun is making some noise over their latest x64server entries by doing a fly by over Dell's HQ yesterday."
If it's yesterday, they're not "doing a fly by". They DID a fly by.
Geeze.
As an SA I can fully confirm X86 Suns do infact suck, they stick sucky -always failing- drives in the machines, replace the failed drives with more sucky failing drives.
While Dell's stuff is far from perfect, they are more reliable from the sense I don't have the need to call them every week to get new drives, because the drives they ship aren't fsck'd and don't need to be.
That wasn't half the surprise that seeing this was.
2001 called, they want their angst back.
The competition has given Sun an opening, by sticking with Intel even in an area where AMD has better technology (though Intel will probably catch up in a year or two). Ordinarily I'd laugh at Sun for saying "we're number 6". But if they can partner with AMD well, and AMD can deliver in volume, Sun may survive, they might even do well.
But the people I know are only going to be interested in buying those boxes if they run Linux. To be specific, Red Hat Enterprise, since that's pretty much the standard for electronic design automation these days at least in the US. That's why Sun is suddenly making nice to Red Hat.
As someone who currently works in IT sales, I have this to say: It varies based on the size of the company and what industry the company is in, but most of the time, the people who do the maintenance also make the purchasing decisions.
Also, I think the ads are targeted more towards the younger server administrators.
~UP
Eat the Path.
'At Sun, we're the radical engineers that build "ass-whoopin" technology - we're not Miss Manners and we never want to be.'
Is that where your butt lets out a strange noise?
Last I read, the phrase should be "ass-whuppin'".
Well, I guess geeks aren't familiar with the concept...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If they weren't laying people off like crazy and losing money quarter after quarter I might find it funny.
Basically Sun squandered its oppirtunity with Linux when they destroyed Cobalt and then pissed away any chance of future improvement by not doing anything during the tech bust but waiting.
Aren't most of Sun's senior manangement old Dec or Data General people anyway?
Anybody remember Informix vs Oracle fights./ new0326b.htm
http://www.oreview.com/9705edit.htm
http://www.businessweek.net/bwdaily/dnflash/march
Oracle then went ahead & used all their muscle to crush Informix.
Dude, even though a lot of people recently have taken a liking to it, "sic" doesn't mean "I don't know how to spell this"...
A Dell PE6850 (Quad-CPU capable box, also capable of holding quite a bit of storage) versus a 1U sun server? At least compare something similar. They look like nice servers, but this advertising is a bit deceiving. I suppose it's because the Sun can have 2xDual core opterons. I guess Dell needs to jump on the dual core bandwagon.
I've been building x86 and Opteron Solaris machines for ages. I've also done it for Linux & FreeBSD. However, EVERY Dell Server I've EVER used has sucked a huge donkey-dick! I fucking loath those POSes! It's nice to see Sun hitting the x64 market harder with these new boxes. I've played with a few and they're NICE! My only bitch is SCSI, but easily modified. Dell can rott in hell
Because the thing you really want to do with a server is double- or triple-boot it. Yeah. Ph33r my sub 1-day uptimes.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
At 10:45AM on 9/12, one of the ad planes flew around the NT & YHOO buildings in Sunnyvale, CA. It's strange because there's not a lot of biz still around Java drive. Save money on the gas and X64 banners for the lawyers that they'll need in the future. I'm glad that I'm not a shareholder in SUNW. More money should be spent on compatibility issues and making the "write once, run everywhere" slogan work for its customers.
Opterons will soon have on-chip support for virtualization, allowing all three OSs to run simultaneously -- a great advantage for applications like web/application/database servers.
It's time they get their feet back into niche markets and market it accordingly. They're gonna bite off WAY more than they can chew.
Berto
"will soon have" and vapor should be synonyms... Until it's out, it doesn't count.
-]Phreak Out[-
Anyone remember the Sun 386i? Intel 386 based. Ran SunOS 4. Not successful - worked OK, but not price competitive with PCs and not compatible with Sun's other product lines.
I just ordered two hundred of them at 680 bucks each (with hard drive). They're twice as powerful, use less power, and are $40 cheaper than the servers I was getting from Dell.
:)
Oh and yes, we get most of our business from serving porn, and that's what these machines will be doing
First thing I thought of after reading the headline were these ads PowerComputing ran during their peak in the industry.
(R.I.P. PowerTower Pro series.)
8==8 Bones 8==8
Actually it means you can buy the same hardware for your entire enterprise, and worry about what to put on it later.
(BUT PERFORMANCE IS LACKING)
probably not going to make it, eh...
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
SEGA !!
When someone swears in an argument it usually means that the other person has such a good point that the arguer cannot construct a valid and decent point. They must instead fall back on variations of 4 letter words. I find it funny that the grandparent swore first, but the parent, determined to lose the argument more, followed that one up with more swearing. Brilliant.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
I used to work at SUN and I was personally at the meetings when they were announcing and planning their takeover of the x86 server market. They have been strategically planning and designing for this for more than two years now. The thing that SUN was finding as they made their designs and tested them is that they were finding flaws in the Intel/AMD ref designs, and when they went and told them, those companies were saying, "Wow, nobody ever noticed that before." SUN knows how to make a stable server, and their designs are WORLD CLASS. Bottom line. Looks like SUN is poised to become a great name in computing again.
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/feetball/Sunsnewserve r.jpg
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/feetball/Sunsnewserve r-2.jpg
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/sm8000/sun_buzzes_del l_12_sep_2005.jpg
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
Americans have "humor", us regular English folk have "humour".
Das computermachinen ist nicht fur der fingerpoken und mittengraben. Keep das hans in poketz und vatch das blinken leitz
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/x64tradeup/index.html
Trade in any qualified Dell server and get a 20% trade-up allowance off the list price on eligible new Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers with 3-year support services. That's a potential savings of up to $1,900 on new entry level Sun servers that have 1.5 times the performance of Xeon-based Dell servers.* Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers also offer up to 56% savings in power and cooling costs per year over comparable Dell servers.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
wait for few more years to see Mr.Scott weaing a Dell badge.
Doesn't it sound familar?
Senthil
In the past having worked for large unix houses powered exclusivly with sun and Digital then compaq gear. We had problems with all of the different vendors hardware from time to time. However in all cases the Unix based Sun hardware was ALWAYS more reliable than the Dell based Intel Windows hardware. Later I moved to a Linux based x86 company that exclusivly uses dell. Nothing but problems with RAID cards, scsi issues all sorts of problems. The moral of the story is if anyone ever asks me what hardware to buy I always say anything BUT dell.
Er, aren't the Sun drivers for Linux open-source? Can't the OpenBSD folk just port them?
--S
-- sigs cause cancer.
The "bold ad concept" reveals Sun's bad taste.
http://pics.bbzzdd.com.nyud.net:8090/users/feetbal l/Sunsnewserver.jpg
l l/Sunsnewserver-2.jpg
http://pics.bbzzdd.com.nyud.net:8090/users/feetba
So there's yet another more-or-less-standard computer to be sold. Oh, wait. It's just being sold at a different price.
And there's an ad campaign for it.
People, I don't give a flying rats sh*t about advertisements.
Have a look at any newspaper. It's full of that crap. I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for AdBlock for my browser. I don't have a TV, simply because of ads. I don't listen to the radio for the same reason. Last time I went to the movies, I saw 40 (!) minutes of ads - haven't been in a cinema since.
I hate adverts. Loathe them.
So here's one which is not quite as terminally moronic as most of them (and I did like the idea of the plane).
But is it NEWS?
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Sun still around ? Thought they were long gone.
Say I'm running RHEL4.
Why would I want to switch to Solaris 10?
Really?
...and this marketing joke justs proves.
Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
The only thing "controversial" about the Sun ads the WSJ refused to run is that they're vulgar and juvenile.
Insert witty sig here.
Worst censorship ever. oops sorry dell, those weren't supposed to be seen by everyone on slashdot.
I've been trying to avoid buying a Dell server for three months now. Thing is, I can't even build a cheap 1U x86 box for what Dell sells theirs for, and the Dell price includes their 3 year, 24x7 4 hour onsite service.
In Canada at least, HP's Opteron line is almost competitive, until you factor in extended support, which is incredibly expensive. So here's hoping Sun will provide a decent, low cost Opteron based server with extended support costs competitive with Dell.
PS. Dell outsources their support. I'm told by one of their techs their prices are so low because they they use older components, but they were pretty quick with dual core systems.
What should we think of this page (URL)? http://www.sun.com/emrkt/rejected/approved.html
I'm sure they never read this. That is not really good naming. Anyway...
Dell just set up 8 new SAM sites along their perimeter.
Au contraire. The reason they advertise Linux compatibility with their servers is precisely the same reason they advertise Windows compatibility: it's what their customers want to run. If they could, I'm sure they'd wave a magic wand and make their clients all hot and bothered to run Solaris.
Most likely the reason you don't hear them outright trashing Linux these days is that someone who works marketing for their hardware finally got through to the upper management: "Your customers are running Linux. They like Linux. Trash talk Linux, and they get defensive about their choices. Then they don't like you no more."
The site will churn for a bit and ultimately do nothing. That happens for any of the new Sunfire AMD_64 servers. Hmmmm....I guess their web server is still running on a Sun 3/60. 8-)
Moving to x86 has always represented the last gasp for a risc company based on the history of almost all of the other "workstation" vendors of the early 1990s such as Intergraph, SGI, and others.
In the past buyers paid a premium to these vendors to be roughly 5 years ahead of the curve. Example, Sun had 4GB/s memory bandwidth when Dell was limited to 500MB/s. The workstation vendors have not been able to maintain this 5 year lead and have lost market accordingly.
No, the GPL wouldn't allow it. BSD uses a very liberal license that is much less restrictive.
Unfortunately, Sun has been changing their corporate focus every few months. Linux rocks, it sucks, it's OK, it rocks.
They bought Cobalt, rebranded the systems, and then scrapped the whole product line.
Sun is really spoiled by the whole "Big Iron At Even Bigger Prices" business model and I fear that this foray into x64 is another passing fad.
Then the product goes away and I get stuck with a handful of oddball systems to support.
Er, aren't the Sun drivers for Linux open-source?
No.
Can't the OpenBSD folk just port them?
No.
As any low-level hardware developer will tell you, there are a couple of EXTREMELY dangerous assumptions here:
1.) That the original work done is understandable. Writing drivers is H A R D. Sometimes--often in fact--there are VERY subtle, extremely easily overlooked things happening in drivers. This is exacerbated by the fact that in many cases, the work done in developing a driver by one group is garbage and basing code on garbage becomes REAL garbage. No sir. Not interested.
This is to say nothing of: what happens when it breaks in subtle, hard-to-reproduce fashions? Where do you go for your documentation on it? Another driver? [shudders]
2.) That the original work doesn't have encumbered binaries or other equally troublesome hooks.
To get to the real heart of the matter it's this: if Sun will provide Linux developers documentation, why won't they provide BSD developers that same documentation?
If you really want the scoop on this, here's a good starting point: Sun OpenBSD documentation article
Running 'Nix is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
have all of the class and dignity that I have come to associate with Scott McNealy.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If you are happy with RHEL and non of the features of Solaris 10 (like zones) seem necessary to you, you probably shouldn't. Just go ahead and run RHEL on these boxes.
If however you're running Solaris 8 or 9 on Sparc, then switching to Solaris 10 on Opteron might make sence in many cases.
Informed Customers would rather wax their butt cracks with an angry wasp than buy a Dell. On the other hand, they like our dual power supplies.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
As a unfortunate Dell employee. I asked a friend down in Round Rock Servers if this was true. He did say that it is true, but it happened on monday. I didnt read through all 300 comments. But yah, it did happen, but on monday.
Holy cow, I almost ROFL'd. My head was like 4 inches from the floor. If I'd laughed any harder I would have been out of my chair.
Know that you've been had. You've just been influenced by their marketing campaign, and the fact that you even bothered to come here and be annoyed by it proves that it worked ;)
Clever signature text goes here.
I guess it went over your head. Seeing as I didn't get modded funny, it went over the mods heads too. It was meant to abuse the word to point out the absurdity of its usage in his comment. (and the absurdity of the comment).
PS: I think your catagorizing of people who swear in an argument might be wrong. Just a thought. There is no black and white line to judge people on if they swear. There's no automatically "He lost because he swore" rule, and there's not "He won because he didn't swear" rule. Might be worth a moment of your time to ponder.
Oh, come on, you *have* to admit, that at the very least, the "Benchmark studies..." ad is pretty damn funny. I almost blew coffee out my nose.
note: I had to paraphrase it in the subject, there's not room for "proves that"...
they do almost as much pitching for the competition as they do Sun.
Dell is a name that everyone is familiar enough with, and enough people associate with poor-quality low-cost PCs, that mentioning their name near a word like "suck" isn't necessarily a bad move for a company selling competing server products that a business might actually depend on.
Had him on the front of the ad sitting by one of the servers smoking a doob with the stats posted in the ad, and him blowing a big smoke ring and just simply saying "Whoa....."
mmhmm...... But they don't take American Express.
A community-oriented lyrics site
Speaking of unix I found this blog by a SUN engineer working on Solaris.
FOr uptime on critical I.T., unix is the only OS that has garanteed uptime and advanced application profiling.
I dont know why Solaris here gets such a bad rap? Its clearly years ahead of Linux.
http://saveie6.com/
Sun machine running Solaris 10 vs Dell running Windows.
Ah, OK - even if the Dell machine isn't certified for Solaris, why didn't Sun compare Windows with Windows or Linux with Linux?
Improves their performance maybe?
Move along, nothing to see here.
What was this stunt? Last Ditch Effort before bankruptcy I bet. Unless Microsoft gives them more money like they did to save Apple.
I have to wonder why they would buzz Dell anyway. Why not buzz something more apropos like HP or IBM? After all, Dell sucks too. Maybe they are competing for last place?
Bitch-slapping is fun. They're just playing with each other. I think they're in love.
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
Quick explanation -- think of it as a chroot on steroids, or a slight enhancement over freebsd jails. It's a virtual userland, with a separate init that shares the same kernel and devices. Since the init for a zone is just another process on the system, it can have its memory, CPU, and bandwidth usage managed by the Solaris SRM tools.
You can set it up so that zone A gets a guarantee of 80% of the physical memory, and 90% of the CPU -- run your production site there. The root zone (where you manage other zones) gets a guarantee of 10% of physical memory and 5% of the CPU available. At this point, you can run zone B, with a testing site or development environment that has a guarantee of 10% of the memory and 5% of the CPU. Where it gets cool is when you realize that if zone A only needs 60% of the memory and 40% of the CPU at any given time, zone B now has 40% of the memory and probably about 60% of the CPU available to it.
It's like an extremely dynamic version of VMware that only runs Solaris. The closest LInux analog is Xen, but Linux doesn't have the resource management tools that make this really work.
There are a few other reasons as well - there are commercial applications and environments that don't support Linux (though not anywhere near as many as there used to be). More importantly, the Java VM on Solaris is better than the Linux port. If you're running a J2EE system ($DEITY help you) or a simple servlet engine, I've had better luck on Solaris than with Linux. Of course, I could probably give you just as many reasons to go the other way...
-30-
Sun appears to have pulled the images. Anyone manage to grab copies? Nothing on coral or google cache.
Brian
Uh, they got rid of what was Cobalt, most of the developers (if not all) are gone I belive the good ones went to Google.
Clotting? Do you seriously belive that? They have canned a ton of people, they don't have anyone implmenting, any R&D that is left is likely taking place in India, along with the support (that delay is as annoying as hell).
Wall Street? Huh, stock looks like it is maybe ~40 cents about is 52 week low, that isn't love thats pity.