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Sun CEO On Razors And Blades
Kadin2048 writes "In an interview with BusinessWeek online, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy sheds some light on the company's new business model and future direction. In particular, he said that Sun's recent open source moves were part of a new strategy, where 'The software is the razor. The razor blades are the servers.' The move was called a huge risk by BusinessWeek, and it would put Sun at odds with the more traditional Microsoft-esque model with high per-seat or per-server software licensing costs and use commodity PCs and servers, which may not go over well with investors. But after having seen its stock slide and users flee for Linux and Windows, they arguably have little to lose. Perhaps the most interesting development to Slashdot readers is that in an effort to draw new developers to the platform, Sun is offering a deal that seems torn from a cell-phone company playbook: offering a "free" Ultra 20 Opteron workstation if you sign up for a $29.95/mo, 3-year service contract."
Still a half-decent deal.
Actually its $30 a month (== $360 per year). Still a good deal.
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
This is definetly what apple does in the consumer space. The cost of selling additional copies of software is zerom but hardware costs a certain minimum amount. If anything makes sense as a loss leader it is software that won't lose you more money the more you sell. Then of course your value proposition becomes hardware quality. Your hardware is better, it costs more (higher margin). So far this is working for apple.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
There are 12 months in a year, not 1.001, dumbass.
Does it run Linux :p
It would seem you buy the hardware first @ $360.00 then the rest is all gravy (software and such) @ $720.00. Retail, the system is probably about 800.00. Still not a bad deal.
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Those guys are flakes!
It's absolutely indecent, calling something a Sun Ultra 20 that doesn't even have an UltraSparc processor in it. I am tempted to erect a catapult across the road from Sun headquarters and hurl Ultra 5 workstations at them.
Sun truly is 'going the Carly way' it seems. Stripmining their credibility to 'preserve stock value' for a bit longer.
resigned
The workstation in question starts at ~$900 msrp. The three year service contract is ~$1000. Other than the fact that it's an interest free loan, doesn't seem to be much to be gained there.
This goes further into the model proposed by the post: 8-cores in the CPU (one FPU for the eight) and 32 discrete threads, all in a 2U server box. This is based on UltraSparc, but there's Solaris 10, and the port of gcc to it for seductive app transfer. The whole idea is a hardware play.
It makes me wonder why there must always be this gulf between hardware and software vendors. The most successful models meld them together handsomely into devices like iPods, mobile/pda devices, etc. This thick-thin shift is so insane. At the end of the day, we just want to do work, entertainment, and something useful with the devices we buy, and the location of what's going on is increasingly irrelevant. But perhpas this is what (F)OSS software will get for us, an army of coders coupled to an army of blade vendors, with dumb devices at the edge.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
This deal looks neat.
But Sun has a whole line of Opteron-based computers.
Does anyone have anything good/bad to say about their entry model, the X2100?
Here's the review I saw: http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2530
I like the idea that it is an off-the shelf minimal server.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
3 years is $1,078.20.
That is for the basic model. For something with real specs, 2GB ram, faster processor, and a Dual layer DVD burner, you have to pay a $1,800 premium.
For that money you can buy a Dual core 2.3 GHz Power G5 and have change left.
Your real profit here: The Apple looks a lot better, and is still cheaper.
For the sad design of this Sun box, they should charge Dell prices, this since they are competing with Dell with the Fire server line anyway.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Lol, I hope that's not an indication of the Ultra 20....
The cost is $1080 dollars, since it is ~30/month minimum of 3 years.
Second, an Ultra 20 Opteron does not mean 20 Opterons, it means a workstation model 20 with one processor.
So, while reasonable, not nearly incredible.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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The software is the razor. The razor blades are the servers. Together they're slicing up Sun's stock price.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
I have been *really* tempted to buy a number of Sun systems. Their website, however, sucks so bad that I can't bring myself to do it. Okay, so Dell might be "lower end", but they know how to design a website for goodness sake! On the Sun site, you can't tell exactly what you're getting, and it's not clear how to change things. Who wants anything without RAID these days? I want to customize the EXACT machine I want, not work inside their template. If they can't handle that, then they're in for some more bad days ahead.
How do I choose RAID on any of those systems? How do I replace it with a faster hard drive? How do I change the software stack. I might be able to figure it out, but generally it seems like they don't get it. If they simply made their website better they would triple their revenue.
Oh, come on, we can see right through that. It's just another sleazy attempt by Sun to acquire money in exchange for goods and services.
The nerve.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
I am glad to see sun going in to an open source direction, but how long will it last this time?
When Solaris 8 source was released, it was not exaclty open source, and did not last long at all.
I think that Sun is schizophrenic wrt open source - one minute they love it, the next it is stealing jobs or doomed to fail or whatever. Also, I remember to get ahold of the solaris 8 source you had to sign a contract and couldn't do anything other than look at the code - no local changes, certainly no distribution or discussion with anyone (even within my company) who had not signed the contract. I wound checking their libc source a couple times to verify 2.6/2.8 compatibility of some software and that is about it. That license made it nearly useless.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
Let people bitch about how you can build your own for a cheaper price. The Ultra 20 is still the better deal as far as I'm concerned.
* 3 year warranty on both hardware AND software (for which you have to pay extra with just about all other vendors)
* One of the most mature operating systems out there
* One of the most mature 64-bit operating systems out there (TRUE 64 bit)
* The only commercial system that is certified to run the three (arguably) most popular operating systems - Windows, Solaris, and Red Hat
Considering all of those factors, I still consider the Ultra 20 to be a hell of a bargain.
The only catch is that is it NOT $29.95 per month. You pay in three annual installments. I posted an open letter to Sun on a web site that I write for criticizing them for continually advertising $29.95 a month when they actually do not offer such financing. Jonathan Schwartz actually responded to it on his blog stating that financing and legal are the slowest segments of any corporation to respond to new ideas and that the Ultra 20's marketing was rushed. Just an FYI on that.
Still, I'd have that Ultra 20 replace my Sun Blade 100 at home in an instant if I had the finances at the moment.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
"Razor and Blade? They're FREAKS!"
I'm sorry, but when I moderate, I moderate the comment, not the poster. I don't give a fuck if the guy goes around all day posting about his love of raping babies; if his comment here is relevant, it will be moderated accordingly. Go take your thought police bullshit somewhere else.
Libertarian: label used by embarrassed Republicans, longing to be open about their greed, drug use and porn collections.
Some people pay more for _just_ a service contract.
Without any hardware whatsoever.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Ok, ok, let me get this straight: The server is the computer, and the server is the razor blade that is on the razor, which is the software. So, the computer, which is the server, which is the razor blade, runs the software, which is the razor. I'm confused. Either Sun is trying to shave using the handle as the blade and the blade as a handle, or I missed something...
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
But, does that business model actually work? I mean, for razors?
I mean, when I go to the store to get more blades, I always forget what specific type of handle I have. It's not something I really spend the effort to commit to memory. So I just don't buy new cartridges, putting it off until next time.
Or, I just buy the disposable safety razors instead, which are cheaper anyway. Having to remember the type of handle or track down the specific model is enough of a pain to remind me that it's silly to spend all that money on a 3-bladed replacement cartridge. If you actually bother to use decent shaving cream and hot water, a cheapo safety razor does the job just as well.
Come to think of it, it's not a giant sacrifice for Schick to give away the handle anyway. It's a damn piece of injection-molded plastic. Nor is it unusual for a consumer to have 5 different handles, so it's not like they're locking you in.
Surely the strategy makes more sense in the tech sector, where you really can lock someone in to a platform. But I find it odd that we're always analogizing this to a business strategy outside the tech sector that just doesn't sound particularly effective.
Xcott
Um ... The Ultra 20 is certified to run Red Hat.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
* One of the most mature 64-bit operating systems out there (TRUE 64 bit)
You do realise its an AMD Opteron, not a Sparc in this model?
Considering that I've been working with Sun hardware for over 10 years, yes, I am fully aware of that.
Am I supposed to care? In fact, is anyone supposed to care? If you want the UltraSPARC line, Sun still has high-end workstations to take care of that as well as ALL of their mid-range and high-end servers. They're all UltraSPARC driven. I love this system for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that the Ultra 20 supports my two favorite underdogs - Sun and AMD.
The hypocrisy on Slashdot is amazing. We all scream and cheer with "It's about time" at the announcement that Dell might sell AMD hardware. But with Sun, suddenly the attitude is "{nose in air} Well! It's NOT an UltraSPARC! Hrmph! Peasantry!"
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I don't think that Sun's recent Open Source moves are going to help either. What is the problem that they want to solve? until that statement doesn't involve the words "selling large servers" Sun will continue to spiral into oblivion.
Open sourcing their software portfolio generates a large base of developers that contribute to the quality of the products and maybe they will even reccomend Sun hardware to their CIO. It is really no different than OpenOffice.org. Basically you get a huge amount of goodwill assosiated with your brand. Then you can sell hardware and support. The big customers will not consider buying the software without the support contracts. This model has proven to work for companies like Redhat, Mysql, Suse and others as well.
No Sigs!
"razor and blade" would qualify as an overused analogy for marketing, though it kind of fits, because the software is free or cheap and the hardware is sadly exorbitantly priced.
Sure, you pay $1100 in three chunks, but that doesn't include the monitor, the HDD, and other stuff.
For those of you who see the title, and go "Yay!!", I suggest you go ahead and customize it, and see the final price.
Perhaps the monitor, HDD, etc are workstation-grade, but they are definitely not cheap.
Considering what I've spent on service contracts over the last several years, that's not a bad deal. The box only has to flake once, and it's probably paid for itself. This presumes, of course, that your downtime is worth something. I bought desktops from IBM and HP for the last job because we got a three-year service contract with them, and paid slightly more (total) for hardware only for PIV/Xeon-based machines.
The best part of a three-year contract is that the company is betting that it won't see that box again during that period, so you have some hope that it's built to a reasonable quality standard. There's nothing worse (computer-wise) than getting a supposedly great price on a piece of equipment, just to watch it act flaky (eating into your productivity) for months before ultimately dying decisively (eating even further).
I wish them the best of luck. They have good tools, and maybe they can make enough off support and hardware to keep going. I personally think they should charge some minimal amount for the bundle, as Apple does, just for psychological reasons, but if they've thought this through, then let's see how it works.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
But perhpas this is what (F)OSS software will get for us, an army of coders coupled to an army of blade vendors, with dumb devices at the edge.
I disagree with the "dumb devices" bit; that's too cynical. We can have devices at the edge that are only as smart as they need to be. This enables tons of networked apps that can relay dynamic information: news, airline flight status, and so forth. Increasingly, these tools are built into clients that aren't even web browsers (e.g. RSS readers, OS X dashboard widgets, cellphones, etc.). These networked apps make devices at the edge smarter (=== more useful), often in ways that a smarter (== more powerful) device couldn't possibly emulate.
Put another way, I could have a Cray in my basement -- but that still wouldn't help me conveniently find out when my friend's flight's arriving. The army of coders and blade vendors are still necessary to enable that application, despite a Really Smart Device providing heat for my house... ^_^
What is the styptic pencil, then?
I think the opterons are kind of a stop gap, I can't sun staying there, it's just that it's their only option. They can't honestly expect to go head to head with Dell.
Really is all comes down to their flow machines, or whatever they're calling niagra, if it's the real deal then they might pull this off. If not, then from what I've gathered, they're getting amped about storage and that's plan b. I guess I've just never been that impressed by Sun's hardware building capability, the whole package has turned out pretty nice between the software and the hardware but the hardware by itself has seemed kind of mediocre compared what others are doing.
Then visit the linked comments and moderate those instead. It's embarrassing that some are still at +5, oblique as they are in their bigotry.
is quite ridiculous, considering that if you visit their website you will notice that it is already free
http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/devtools/free/
Cheers,
Adolfo
PS. I wonder if they have fixed the swing clear type issues.
"The software is the razor. The razor blades are the servers." ...and what would be the uncut Columbian cocaine?
Ouch! I know you don't like him too much, but this is just cruel.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Good news about AMD for Sun, IBM have a bigger research budget than Sun's turnover, by doing this they stand a chance at keeping up in performance terms. Although virtualisation on i386 is junk compaired to PPC, I don't want to hear about Containers, they are nothing more than glorified BSD jails, IBM have the right idea with hypervisor - but then they know this after 30 odd years of mainframe.
Maybe the correct phrase is a hegenomy of devices, as this is what we have.
To extend your checking flights metaphor, I can do this on my mobile, my PDA, my notebook, or a terminal somewhere I don't own (not that I would). Each device is running something different. The mobile runs Symbian; the PDA runs WinCE, the notebook runs MacOS, and only heaven knows what the public terminal has, probably a Windows session.
At the core on the thick side is (statistically, anyway) either Apache/Tomcat, or IIS/something running the back end. Maybe Solaris, HP/UX, or something else is behind the curtain. Sun is trying to sell what's behind the curtain without thinking about the rest of the capability of the delivery system or the end device. Indeed the end device should go away or become something very uniform and manageable by their last perceived closed app, Java.
Yuck. I don't think that behind the curtain model works. Yes, hulking fast servers are good things. But divorcing what's at the edge is really very silly, unless you're a hardware server maker like Sun--- who provides none of those edge devices-- so in their minds they must not exist. These devices aren't embraced, they're ignored. It's egalitarianism through ignorance and hubris.
This is the same thick model they've been bandying about since inception, and failing-- except during the dot-bomb era when people just bought hardware for mindless reasons and irrational exuberance. As Robert Plant might sing, the song remains the same.... just a new stanza.
Sun is otherwise pretty smart, and smarter than Red Hat and SuSE when it comes to Unix. But they're also stuck in their own mud. McNealy and Schwartz should exit, and get a team that can appeal to a new and differently incented group of buyers. But their egos get in the way. They always do.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The razor/blade business model set up by Gilette can be understood better by the recent example of inkjet printer. The manufacturer gives you/sells you at a low price what you think is valuable or was valuable in preceding business model. And it locks you into buying compatibles blades/inkjet cartridge/servers and makes all its margin from what you considerer are accessories. :) ("Oh, all my Ferraris ashtrays are full. Let's buy a new one").
With inkjetq, you sometime can find deals were a brand new printer with 2 free cartridges is cheaper than twice the standalone cartridge. I have friends who bought a second printer because it was cheaper to do so
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Wake up when I can get a Niagra-based workstation for a few grand. make -j 32, mmmm. But somehow I have a feeling they'll cost a fortune so I'll never get one. Anyways I need some FLOPS with my IOPS. Perhaps the perfect workstation of 2006 will be a $100K Niagra box with a $300 PS3 math coprocessor :)
They're giving away the servers *and* the software. I guess it's the service contract that's the razor.
Given Sun's business acumen the last decade, I expect them to start giving that away too. Not that I'd be happy about that. Competition is good, so competitors shooting themselves in the foot is bad.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Why It Makes Sense for Sun to Open-Source Java Libraries & Solaris Kernel
Published Jun. 6, 2004
Back in the 19th century, all men shaved with straight razors. Then in 1905 King Gilette patented a disposable-blade razor. It was called a "safety razor" purely for marketting reasons. Its main selling point was that you never had to sharpen the blade — when it got dull you just threw it out and bought a new one.
And yes, they did sell the handles at a loss, and made it back selling the blades But that was just to ease market resistance. The product stood on its own merits.
It's an interesting strategy, it doesn't apply in 90% of the business models it's claimed for. I certainly don't see how it applies to computers. Everybody know about Total Cost of Ownership, and aren't going to be impressed that they can get a Sun box for free. If Sun is going to make all its money off of software and customer service, then they should stop making computers altogether, and leave the hardware headaches to others.
Here are some of the cellphone-like terms from that contract:
- Service plan includes up to 1 Trillion CPU instructions per month, absolutely free.
- Extra CPU instructions are billed at $0.08/Billion peak, $0.03/Billion nights and weekends.
- Free instructions do not include floating-point operations. All floating point instructions are billed at $0.11/Billion.
- Monthly bill will also include a regulatory cost recovery service fee. You agree to pay this fee each month. This fee is not a tax, and it is not a required government payment. It is not possible for you to know the cost of this fee until you receive your bill. The amount of this fee is determined totally at the provider's discretion, it may change from month to month, and you agree that there is no limit how high the fee may be set. You agree that the provider is not required to justify the fee or base its amount on any reason whatsoever.
- If you cancel the contract before the 3-year term is up, you will be responsible for an early termination fee of $75,000 per system per month of contract remaining, up to a maximum of $3,200,000.
- The system remains the property of the provider. At the end of the contract term, you must return it in like-new condition, and you will be responsible for a $2895 restocking fee, plus, at our sole discretion, refurbishing fees for any wear, tear or damage to the system.
- This system is not compatible with household A/C electrical power. This system requires 3-phase, 153 Hz, 67 Volt RMS power. You are responsible for using a compatible power source. Failure to connect appropriate power will destroy the system, and will result in damage fees of at least $17,000. You may purchase optional compatible power from us. Our current rates are $34.50/kWH plus $179/month power connection fee.
- We may change any term of this contract at any time without notice. You agree that any and all changes are binding on you and you heirs.
Anyone who's tried to write a Java program that uses minimal hardware resources already knows that Sun views "the software as the razor; the servers as the blades."
Erlang.org: wow
Goddamn. This nearly had me fall off my chair. Then I went to SUN's site and realised that this offer is for the US customers only and not applicable to EU customers
Message to Sun, if you want more IT people on your hardware and software, you need to make it easier for people to gain those skills (you have just made it easier to gain the hardware). Books only go so far, you have to play with it, learn it and use it to know it. I'm interested in learning Sun, but no *nix shop is going to let me in the door no matter how many years of IT experience I have with just a book education. People want education, so make it easier for the lay person to afford it, ok?
The best advocate for your product is the IT person. The best way to get the advocate is to make sure that the IT person can learn you product. I've been looking for a reasonably affordable option to get trained on Sun for years, most IT people can't talk their contract house into paying for your clases. Novell, Microsoft and Novell all have readily available classes in community colleges and the like, Sun, where are you?
Make sure you check the expiration date on your card before you order!
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
The razor and blades model doesn't work when there are lower-cost blades to use your razor with. Viva portability.
Okay, whoever modded the parent down is clueless. Sun can indeed customize their systems to anything you want. I work for a VAR. I know these things. In fact, it's my job to know these things. Yes, you are only given a certain number of configurations on the main web site, but that's called SIMPLICITY. They offer what they consider to be the most basic configurations that would appease a major market and they make those available. If that's not what you want, you are always free to contact their sales department or a VAR.
/.
And I agree that if you're too lazy to pick up a telephone and actually **gasp** TALK to someone, you obviously don't really have an interest in the system and just want to complain.
Call a spade a spade and you get modded down. Unbelievable. Only on
Gilette files suit against Sun Microsystems citing trademark infringement (confusion on part of the customer) and also for infringing upon their business model. When token minority Faux News corrrespondent Virginia Washington questioned Gilette CEO regarding the validity of the suit, he responded "It is well known that we established the business model by selling inexpensive razors with expensive proprietary razor blade refills. It is clear that Sun Microsystems is attempting to capitalize our trademarks and trade names with their newly-announced product line. We believe the public is comprised of idiots and may begin to associate in their minds affiliation between Sun Microsystems and Gilette. Besides, we're bigger than Sun Microsystems. The law means nothing when you have enough money to buy off judges."
Various bloggers who are open source proponents web sites sharply criticised both Gilette and Sun Microsystems, claiming that the design for both both kinds of razors should be open, to avoid vendor lock-in issues. Richard Stallman issued a statement demanding that not only should the design be open, but freely given away because when he ran out of razor refills he was forced to buy a different brand along with its expensive refills because the store he went to was out of Gilette razors. When Faux news inquired what the hell that has to do with anything, Stallman replied "I already have plenty of money in the bank myself, so I don't think that there is any need for anyone to make money off of razors. After all, I'm all set, who gives a rat's ass about anyone else?" FAUX Correspondant Virginia Washington pointed out that many razor choices exist and no one forced Stallman to choose Gilette, to which he responded "Didn't I mention I already made my money? I no longer see any need for razor manufacturers to charge for their products or block others from producing identical products for free."
(this has been a weak attempt at humor poking fun at both FOX and current patent and trademark cases and how the law often goes ignored in such cases. Roll your eyes and move on, or chuckle a bit)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
what about the ULTRA 1000 or ULTRA 2000. You couuld pick one with 2G RAM and two CPUs, they are also SPARC IIIs, the price is less than what you pay for the ultra20 (opteron)
froogle.com points to several stores, anysystem.com one of them.
Sun nursed their hardware monopoly for too long and Linux came up and bit them in the ass with price performance. It didn't matter that Solaris performed better because the hardware cost so damned much. By the time they realized they couldn't rely on their reputation, they were toast. If they had done anything serious in the x86 market five years ago or so, a project like this might be viable, but at this point they look like SGI who, you may recall, came out with a line of NT workstations about five years ago. I suspect this will end up as successful.
Troll. You're a complete troll, and you're not very good at it, I might add.
You cannot compare new items to grey/aftermarket for many reasons, not the least of which is because of warranty. There is not one liquidator or after-market reseller that will offer anything like a 3 year warranty on parts and software for an item which obviously is not theirs. (I'm quite sure that no aftermarket reseller is owned by Sun.) To put those units under a three-year warranty with Sun, it might have to be recertified, which is not free, depending on your local sales rep's time of the month (that's a joke, folks), and it will definitely cost more to put that system under a maintenance contract for three years. So, yes, you can buy it cheaper, but putting it under maintenance contract is much more expensive than just buying an Ultra 20 outright. You clearly do not work with Sun hardware in a corporate environment on a regular basis or you'd know this.
Since the warranty is the major selling point of the Ultra 20, your attempt to downplay the Ultra 20 has no merit.
Back to troll school with you! Go! Bad troll! BAD!!
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
'The software is the razor. The razor blades are the servers.'
This reminds me of a line from Heart Cooks Brain by Modest Mouse:
On my way to God don't know or care
My brain's the weak heart, and my heart's the long stairs.
Next up from Sun: Server cooks software.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I don't understand why this is regarded as a risky move. It's a proven business plan. Hell, it's the one Apple uses right now. The razors are songs sold via the iTunes music store for minimal, if any, profit and at significant up-front cost. The blades are the iPods.
Yeah, not to mention... where do you go if you want to buy heavy hardware? If you need 86 processors in one machine? You can build a cluster, but you're probably going to spend what Sun would charge you for a sunfire 15k, by the time you spent the time on a consultant, rewrote and tested your hardware, bought your myrianet or whatever high-speed transport, and got it all running.
Not to mention - there's still a need for machines with 8 or 12 procs, and not to many companies selling them. Certainly none with the reputation for reliability sun has.
Yes, it's expensive and not for everyone... but some people really need it, so they sell it.
~W
sig?
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
Fujitsu Siemens offers extremely good pricing on very nice options (Opteron processors, maximum RAM, ..) (Europe). Monarch Computer offers an even wider range of hardware at similarly competitive prices (USA). So much for the top performance/price relationship. Then, Dell and IBM / Lenovo offer corporate hardware and some nice laptops. Then, Acer has some extremely affordable stock models that don't allow much individual tweaking but prices are really good. After that, you may consider Apple hardware which may cost a bit more in terms of hardware, but offers most in terms of desktop productivity as Mac OS X beats them all. (Yes I want that Acer running OS X ...)
Now... where was it that HP, SGI or Sun actually came in? Did I miss something here? As far as I know, you know even before you look up any HP, SGI or Sun offers that there's a rip-off. Either the hardware is affordable (but has some restrictions) (why restrict a 64-bit processor to 4GB RAM?), or it's simply far, far, far too expensive. Either way: 'no deal'.
If you see something (anything!) at Sun's webstore, think again - someone else *will* sell you a better device for cheaper.
That's one of the nicer looking cases. Anyone have insights into it's design? Is it as easy to open as a Dell, or Mac? Are there extra bays for additional drives? (I'll need two CD bays).
At least in the telecom world there is a lot of that "behind the curtain" sneakiness that needs a lot of horsepower to make the stuff customers see work.
Just as an FYI, the digital world isn't all web servers talking to clients.
On the back-end B2B side there are seems to be more and more XML+HTTPS over private network links between a service provider (any service, think PayPal + X service for instance) and any number of external vendors. External vendors are doing anything from billing, to content delivery, to simply providing user tracking (evil, I know). The user tracking stuff is particularly intensive if you are doing network level tracking (X users going to Y IP that resolves to Z domain) that's a lot of packets to parse :)
Kisanth
Look, yes, SPARC hardware kicks the crap out of commodity x86, sure. But it's not, as I understand it, nearly that far ahead of IBM POWER hardware. The biggest problem with POWER was that you had to use AIX or Linux, both with definite deficiencies relative to Solaris.
But now there's OpenSolaris, and OpenSolaris is being ported to IBM RISC hardware at no cost to IBM. IBM will then be able to pick it up, polish it, offer support contracts, and provide you with a complete Solaris-on-quality-RISC solution, without a dime going to Sun.
I'm not saying it will happen, but it's certainly a reasonable possibility, something Sun should have a plan for in its business case. If IBM starts offering Solaris-on-RISC, how is Sun going to avoid losing market share -- and thus resources for further development -- to IBM? What's its differentiator?
In short, does Sun actually have a plan? Or is it in "We must do something; this is something; therefore we must do it!" mode?
Every time there's a Sun-related article posted here on Slashdot, I'm amazed and shocked at how completely ignorant almost all people that respond to the article are on the subject. It seems the majority of the people have never used a Sun hardware or software product, and simply criticize because the goods involved are not free.
I'm a UNIX system administrator of 12 years in IT, and Sun makes some of the best hardware and software in the IT industry, period. They will continue to do so. Their target market is traditionally large business, so the run-of-the-mill penniless student isn't going to get all their attention (although that's changed some). The cost involved in investing in their products is completely worth it if you care at all about quality, reliability, and honest-to-goodness engineering.
Open sourcing their software portfolio generates a large base of developers that contribute to the quality of the products and maybe they will even reccomend Sun hardware to their CIO. It is really no different than OpenOffice.org.
Well, that is DEFINITELY the case with openoffice.org, which is available under a widely accepted open source license (the LGPL).
Unfortunately, this is not the case with Solaris, which is under a convoluted and restrictive license which basically exists for no reason other than to be incompatible with the GPL. This is entirely different from the model employed by MySQL, RedHat etc; they can't grow a base of software developers because the license can do nothing but scare developers away. So instead of growing with the rest of the open source community, Sun is creating a little hermetically sealed dome where they say "hey, you can come and write our propreitary operating system for us for free! sweet deal, right?"
Compare with Apple. Apple has had parts of their OS under a solaris-like license for years, and no such base of people growing Darwin exists. The patches flow in one direction, from Apple to the community. Meanwhile, like Sun, Apple also has a popular LGPL project: WebKit, the heart of Safari. WebKit is experiencing at least some two-way public development in its interactions with Konqueror and is even being picked up for use by other companies, such as Nokia.
The difference is Apple doesn't even try to call what they're doing "open source", they call it "public source", and they openly admit it exists pretty much as a convenience to their customers, not so that they can get the benefits of the open source development model. They aren't, you know, doing something that's fundamentally incompatible with the open source movement as it exists and pretending to be embracing open source. Which comes down to:
Basically you [Sun] get a huge amount of goodwill assosiated with your brand.
Oh, they definitely get that. Because what they're doing is nominally open source, it doesn't matter if what they're doing is helpful to any open source community; they still get people going yeah, Sun gets it. As long as that person isn't actually within the group of people who might actually be contributing development to Solaris-- those people stay away.
Right here and
and here
Sun engineers, update your resumes, start making phone calls. Your skills are transferable to the Linux community. And you'll be welcomed with open arms. Don't wait for Scott or Jonathan to kick you out onto the street the next quarter when Sun misses its numbers again and needs to satisfy Wall Street on cost cutting. You've seen the job losses over the last couple of years. You've survived so far. But most Sun engineers are very talented, and the not so talented ones have already been kicked onto the street. So there isn't any reason to expect you'll survive the next round of cost cutting.
Sun is doomed. It can no longer touch the top 500 supercomputers. It's still losing customers. It can't fight a worldwide community of developers for Linux. OpenSolaris is too little, too late. And just as with BSD, it doesn't have a chance not because of the code, but because of the license. The GPL is what made Linux what it is today. What allowed Linux to surpass BSD. Surpass Solaris. Surpass AIX. Surpass everything out there. Had Sun GPL's Solaris five years ago, then it might have had a chance. But Sun missed the wave.
Join the wave. Don't be consumed by it. Polish up your resumes, Sun engineers, and start putting out some feelers to the Linux community. You'll be snapped up in no time.
Do it today. Take the next step. Join the juggernaut. Don't get run over by it. Scott and Jonathan are set for life with all their options and golden parachutes. How about you? Do you have a golden parachute from Sun? No? Then do it. Update your resume. Start making some calls. Do it today. Don't wait till you are out on the street. Now's the time. Pick up the phone. We can't do it for you. Don't wait till Sun finishes morphing into SCO. Make the move today. We're waiting for your call.
The x86 servers they are selling are price competitive with the dells and Hp's and can run solaris which has commerical unix software that linux still lacks. A stable api and abi would be nice so unix vendors can port to linux. You can run windows or linux on them as well if you wish.
I agree with SGI. SGI's performed poorly and were just generic pc's with ok graphics cards and were expensive. Sun's offerings are not bad and solaris is really nice for those who need uptime. If sun can pull it off then great. It seems they are trying to reinvent themselves rather than acting desperate.
Lets hope I am right. The sun systems look more like open x86 unix systems then anything and you can buy one for as low as $799. Very much unlike the Sun I used to remember.
http://saveie6.com/
You should get your wakeup call on Tuesday, when Sun launches the Sun Fire T2000 which is the first system based on the UltraSPARC-T1 (aka Niagara) processor. There have already been public mentions in the press citing that the starting prices for T1-based systems will less than a few grand (i.e., under $3000).
As for the Opteron processor being faster than the Niagara, it depends on how you look at it. SPARC-based systems are traditionally about throughput, and the UltraSPARC T1 processor is no exception. If you have a single-threaded process, then the Opteron will be faster. But if you've got a scalable multi-threaded application, then a single Opteron isn't going to touch the T1. In most of my testing with such applications, the Sun Fire T2000 is able to outperform a V40z with four Opteron CPUs.
solaris 10 + zfs + dtrace + niagra. Sounds like a winner to me.
Actually, I disagree. Open Source isn't magic juju. Few companies that have opened their portfolio rather then starting out open source have been successful.
Sun has little goodwill as it is with the open source community.
If the analysis was so limited, Sun would be making money. It isn't and they're not.
Are there niches? Yep. Is sun a company that can survive in present circumstances as a niche company? Nope.
Good deal? Not so much! 1080$ USD (1250$ CDN or so)
:)
For that price you could make yourself a Dual Opteron 144 (same model as in this deal AFAIK) on a Asus K8N-DL motherboard or such, and probably with more RAM and more HD space... A machine that would be MUCH more powerful!
The only good part of this deal is you get support. I guess they're planning on most people not making use of it, hence disguising the hardware price as a support fee.
Now if we could get that deal without the service contract, THAT'd be a REAL deal!
I din't mean the Opteron was faster than Niagra, only than current UltraSparc chips. Niagra sounds really cool to me, at least for integer stuff.
Not to mention - there's still a need for machines with 8 or 12 procs, and not to many companies selling them. Certainly none with the reputation for reliability sun has.
Oh really?
You're the bigot dumbass, and an anonymous coward at that.
The major question that emerges here is whether this model will work for a large company like Sun.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
Well, Sun's Open Source credibility is increasing. Now that they've decided to open source everything, it will only improve more.
No Sigs!
32 procs in one machine? I'd buy a p595 and be able to run multiple partitions on it. Yeah you can do it NOW with Solaris 10 zones but nothing beats an LPAR in my mind.
Oh yeah and the p5 procs are dualcore as well so I'll have 64 cores.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Here is a great thing that small business owners would love. I mean, the opportunity to start with little capital and get the needed services over three years.
There's only one problem -- Sun's market isn't small businesses (small IT). Sun's market isn't medium-sized IT, either. Sun's market is only large enterprise... which is dominated by Windows and (now) Linux. Could someone correct me if this is not the case?
Whether in business or pleasure, I have really wanted to use Sun stuff... I really do. I just can't figure out a reason to. Every time I look at their site. It's like it is completely irrelevant to what is going on in the normal world.
At last a sun workstation that doesn't look entirely like crap. All the other stuff appears to be standard x86 fare - allthough it probably isn't just that - but at least the box looks decent.
With everyone going all comodity and even Apple switching to x86, with computers powerfull enough for allmost any job this little visual detail stuff is more important than ever.
If they actually manage to build an market a solid x86 setup that earns itself a reputation for stability and bottleneck-free x86 performance and comes across with visual and usable consitency Sun might even get the curve. Even if they screwed up UltraSparc and keep Java as unattractive for rich clients as it is.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
See, the money men can't comprehend the concept - so it must be bad.
This is Bill Gates' thinking.
Much as I think Sun is doomed no matter what it does, I give kudos to the company for at least trying, as opposed to Microsoft that will NEVER understand what is going on as long as Gates and his henchmen are running the company.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"Razor and Blade?! They're flakes!" "They're ELITE!" (ducks)
Well, Sun's Open Source credibility is increasing. Now that they've decided to open source everything, it will only improve more.
Only if they refrain from further schzoid episodes. This week they like Open Source and are ready to compete with products rather than lawyers. Next week, they could be threatening the Harmony project and making subtle patent threats. You never really know where you will stand with Sun next month, next year, or even tomorrow.
If they hold their present course and keep their mouths and their lawyers in check then we may see the improvement you speak of.
I do not think this word "proven" means what you think it means. MySQL is still burning venture capital. Suse lost money before being swallowed by Novell, which loses money on Linux. RedHat has only been in the black only since 2003.
and thankfully that means linux != sun. please don't associate everything that is linux styled and open source with linux. it's an insult to sun.
25 of those 30 years IBM tried to kill off their hypervisor, now they have 5 unrelated virtualization products they call under same name. They hope nobody notices that while they laid off their VM guys VMware and Xen came in and did things IBM never thought of like VMotion
Download Solaris 10 and run it yourself, it's free you know. Why do you think you have to go take some special class to figure it out? The source is free (opensolaris.com), The documentation is free (docs.sun.com), and so are the numerous "blueprints" and technical whitepapers that they publish. Plus, there are the employee blogs (blogs.sun.com) that often go into great detail about how to exercise some of the more esoteric (and pretty amazing) features of Solaris 10.
Bottom line: The learning curve for administering Solaris 10 is not so steep if you are coming from a Linux or BSD background and its free and easy to get started.
Care to explain that?
Good point.
Libertarian: label used by embarrassed Republicans, longing to be open about their greed, drug use and porn collections.
My appologies. The
--CmdrTaco
The free version has a ATI Rage 8 meg gfx card, 512 megs and a 200 dollar Opteron.
It costs around 800 for a dual AMD x2 4200 with 1 gig ram and same HD and Nvidia 5200 if you shop on pricewatch.
But you do get 3 years of support for hardware and software. 360 out of pocket now, but id have to upgrade the GFX card right away.
I'm surprised no-ones made an Angelina Jolie reference yet, weren't 'razor' and 'blade' nicks used in that movie 'Hackers'.
!sig
I have to disagree with you. After experiencing a major crisis in our machine room with electricity usage and heat, the idea of more power efficient machines (like Sun's newest servers) seems to make a lot of sense to me. Combined with the cool virtualization features in Solaris 10 it seems like a good deal to me.
Damn,I thought this was an article on shaving. :)
Bill Gates is absolutely wrong when he says hardware will be free and software is the money maker. Making hardware and shipping it cannot and will not become free. It makes sense for Sun to open source their products, because people who buy Sun hardware buy it for the service agreement. They buy it because if a part fails, Sun will send a rep out with a replacement part. That is critical for businesses who need it. Although there's still room for improving the OS, it's going to get increasingly difficult to charge a premium for it. If you don't think that true, consider that microsoft recently announced office live. They also see the painting on the wall. If they are having a hard time charging a premium for software, what does that say? It says that even a monopolist sees the writing on the way. Publicly, they might paint a rosy picture, but if you look at their business strategy the last 5 years, it's clear shrink wrapped productivity software like office is changing. No one needs a new version of office. Office 2K is good enough and it's going to be very hard to convince people it's worth paying $500 for an upgrade. There's no point.
Yeah, just build the car from parts from the junkyard...you'll save thousands!!!!
Sun's improvements in their financial numbers over the last year or so are nothing less than DRAMATIC. It's kinda like one of those submarine rockets about to hit the surface and rocket into space.
You never really know where you will stand with Sun next month, next year, or even tomorrow.
Well, I would say that once they opensource all their software, there's really no turning back. They cannot say, "just kidding". It's all done and out there. The new COO (Johnathan Schwartz) seems to be 100% for open source. I really don't see them turning back now.
No Sigs!
mostly that "commercial software that linux still lacks" won't run on x86 Solaris either. Sun won't make money with these workstations, they're just loss leaders to try to grab mindshare for Solaris, except that at the mid and high end you then have to port to UltraSparc even if you're mind is with their program. Doomed, I'd say.
I wouldn't call Solaris 9 and 10 for x86 mature, they're new. Solaris on Ultrasparc is mature. There are some definite issues for porting software from one to the other, and who knows how well vendors of commercial software will do at that?
Sun is just trying to become a combined RedHat and IBM, selling service and support for free software (like RedHat), and hardware and support to run the free software (like IBM). Actually, it seems like a pretty good idea to me, since it certainly has worked for RedHat and IBM, and Sun still has a great reputation in the large business and telecom sectors. Besides, what better thing could Sun do? Companies aren't buying big software contracts anymore, and they have moved away from the $50,000+ server market down to clusters and blades. Sun needed to position themselves to sell that lower-end hardware, and the best way for them to do that is to give away the OS, management tools, and development tools, and get big applications moved to "their" solution. They'll even give away some hardware to people who bring applications (and those applications' users) to them, or make it affordable for people who might have a say in the future on what solution to buy. They've gone from being a provider of solutions that few can afford, to one that everyone can afford, with the same name and reputation as before. They will never get back to where they were in the dot-bomb days, but I think they just realized that and are actually doing something about it.
If you still don't understand the thinking behind this, look at where the other top dot-bomb high-end-only hardware company is. Remember SGI? Take a look at their financials sometime, (hint: they're on pinks now, they were delisted from NASD last month) you'll see just how well hanging on to selling $50,000 workstations was working out.
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
Nice to know it is pretty quiet. That was a big worry of mine. I know the G5s very well, and they are nice and quiet all the time (In use as graphics (so stereotypical) workstations). I do not know the dBs, just quiet, no sound at all audible.
The Sun IDE is IIRC downloadable from java.sun.com for free with the J2EE suite.
This kind of comparisson usually comes down to who has more performance per $. The added value of software suites, and ergonomics will become more important in the next years. I have multiple Dell machines standing around here (low end to medium), and they always make noise. My own new computer will probably be a mac mini with about 1 to 2GB of RAM. Diskspace does not really matter since I am not a music collector, and I can always use a USB drive for some mass storage just a plug away.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
RedHat has only been in the black only since 2003.
Didn't that coincide with them no longer giving away their core product? ie: with RHEL, you have to buy it unless you'd be happy using CentOS. Funny how developing and then giving away free operating systems tends to generate little revenue.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
36 * $29.95 is $1078.20. The same workstation sells for $895. For that $895, hardware support is already included. I think Sun's Opteron hardware is great, but how is this a good deal?
I was just pointing out that OS X boots faster than Ubuntu, not other way around as he said. I understand there are reasons for this, and I wasn't bashing Ubuntu. I love Ubuntu. As for my background services, CPU usage is at 0% after 40 seconds, which includes Quicksilver. Chill out man... I'm glad your "optimized kernel" boots in under a minute, but my default install takes a minute and a half, and OS X takes less than half that, which is all I was saying to counter his claim. There is no reason to react like that, honestly.
Well, the USIV+ is also dual core. You also have Dynamic System Domains on Sun enterprise hardware. Unlike LPARS and UPARS, DSD's give you total electrical isolation. This is more of an issue with upars (upto 10 per cpu) as every upar would be affected by a failure. Solaris 10 gives you application containers (zones) which fit pretty well into the DSD's concept. Uses DSD's to slice up your server at the hardware level and then use zones to create your application containers in your domains. Domains area also fully dynamic so components can be swapped in and out without taking the domain down.
Every heard of domains? Unlike upars these are also electrically isolated. Oh, and upars can sap upto %30 of your performance. Bet IBM didn't tell you that though.
Also the price for the system as is was great if you considered all the software you got, even more so if you split it over those $360/year and got a service plan aswell.
But now Sun are giving away the free software anyway so it's not such an important point but still intresting to point out. I'll install and test Studio 11, Studio Creator and Studio Enterprise real soon now.
Also I don't care that much if the code are open or not, I won't be looking anyway, I just like that it's free. Althought people need to earn money to, so just giving everything away doesn't work.
Voice communications is typically rather slow. Worse if it's some ignorant person at the other end who doesn't know their stuff.
Dell offer basic configs too AND they allow you to customize them AND they allow you to pick up a phone and call.
I prefer to customize stuff online, especially if the customizing UI is quick (Dell has screwed things up and made their UI _slow_, but they seem to be the only big vendor that allows significant online customization).
How much would it cost Sun to just get a decent web app up, vs requiring lots more people to listen to phones? I thought they had all those software dev tools?
It would also be good if they allow you to view the inside and outside of a server, and provide a virtual ruler so you have a good guess whether something will fit or not.
They're elite!
Parent is a fudge packing jew loving kike who gets a hard on when he sees a hooked nose.
Probably loves niggers too.