Slashdot Mirror
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."
Sun's business model has been (IMHO) doomed for years. It's surprising that a company who really recognized the need and use for ethernet has failed to understand that computer decentrilization woudl evenetually include Sun's slightly smaller iron.
Sun is still failing to meet business needs. They pushed thin client because it explained a need that they had: How to sell large iron in a increasingly PC + Internet world.
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.
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.