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Sun and Apple Could Have Merged
Firmafest writes "The Register is running a story about Sun and Apple almost merging on three separate occasions. The information was revealed at a Computer History Museum event, where Sun's four co-founders spoke about the history of the Sun company. Bill Joy said that the two comp anies almost teamed on three different projects, including sharing a user interface and the SPARC architecture." From the article: "'As far as I know we also almost bought Apple once,' Joy said. 'We almost merged with Apple two other times.' Many Silicon Valley observers have long seen links between Sun and Apple. Both companies make slick, pricey hardware and are counter-punchers in their respective markets. They also have charismatic CEO figures and strong anti-Microsoft streaks"
Apple was founded on being a personal computer maker. It was founded to put control of the machines into the users hands. Yes, networked computers aren't mainframes, but McNealy seems to have thes attitude that computing should be centrally controlled or stored.
"Slick" describes Apple perfectly, but isn't a word I'd use to talk about Sun stuff. Sun's hardware is pricey but not because of its looks. It's because it's built like a tank. Apple is all about style, Sun is about rock solid workhorse machines. I think they're both better off as separate companies.
I am trolling
I'd be very interested to see what the folks at Apple have to say about this.
I think if sun and apple merged, then sun would be less interested in apples computer busness since they arleady have a similar computer busness of their own.
If it's dead, you killed it.
"They also have charismatic CEO figures and strong anti-Microsoft streaks""
Linus and Open Source.
They also have charismatic CEO figures and strong anti-Microsoft streaks Another common factor: Both CEOs have known Reality Distortion Fields. Could two such personalities coexist? I'm reminded of what happened between Jobs and John Sculley.
I always tthought that Apple was all about form, making it look good. Sun always seemed to be about functionality. Although it looks like a good combination, Apple is Apple, and I'd buy an Apple product for the prestige value. Which is why I own an Apple iPod nano, rather than I own another product - it looks good. All about style.
I do remember the dark days of '97 when Apple was practically begging to be bought out by Sun. Fortunately, then-CEO Michael Spindler faded away shortly afterward.
The business models of both companies were wildly different, and to some extent still are. But now, I wonder if AAPL should snatch up SUNW for a song.
Apple wants to be a server company too, but can't quite crack the market, even though they have solid server hardware and a decent server OS. The only thing keeping Sun afloat today is their user base as a server manufacturer. So far, sounds like a match. And Sun shareholders would get a more refined CEO in the bargain once McNealy bolted.
The biggest challenge though, is probably insurmountable, and that's product line integration. Sun may be gasping, but Solaris still has a strong presence out there. I can't imagine a forced migration to OS X Server would please sysadmins, even if they get to keep their SPARC-based servers. Which server hardware and OS would "Snapple" sell? Would SPARC and Solaris be end-of-life'd in such a scenario?
So.. I'm not sure. If Sun is in serious trouble, Apple might have a case for rescuing a captive market. But ithe size of Sun's customer base would have to justify the hurdles involved in integrating the acquisition.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
I honestly don't think a merger would have worked before with Apple's previous CEOs who basically sucked pretty bad. Apple would have just stopped being "Apple."
Maybe now with Steve Jobs and a healthy Apple brand it could work and Apple could use some of Sun's technology and strengths for something interesting. But not prior to Steve Jobs joining, he steered the company back to good health.
I also think an Apple transition to x86 wouldn't have worked before Jobs for similar reasons. Under previous management at Apple, I can imagine Apple transitioning to x86, and then asking itself why they bother making a different operating system for their hardware, and abandoning MacOS entirely. The previous Apple CEOs were really dragging Apple down and almost killed it.
Computers should not be in the hands of users, nor on their desktops. Ever.
A terminal is all any user needs, or should have. Sure we are talking fancy quick graphical termnals and not VT100s, but a terminal just the same.
Giving the first average user his own computer was the worst day in IT history.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As a general comment - I'm not sure how I feel about the two companies merging. Yes they are similar in some ways - but they both have their own distinct "feels". I have a feeling that the company that was left after a merge would have ended up as a watered down mix of both that would ultimately fail.
:) Only that I enjoyed coding client server apps better than I currently enjoy coding web applications. Every once in awhile I get to code a daemon or something that still runs as its own process and every time I'm thrilled to not have to deal with all the overhead crap/marketspeak that comes with coding webapps.
:) The thing that really bugs me about the quote above is that it implies that no one will actually OWN their own music anymore. Everything will be provided (metaphorically) to you from Sony's servers. When you miss a payment (for whatever reason), your music collection goes away until you pay again. That is NOT a system that I want to deal with.
Now on to this crap:
"There's a pendulum thing where stuff is on the client side and then goes back into the network where it belongs," McNealy said. "The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network." "Your iPod is like your home answering machine," McNealy said. "I guarantee you it will be hard to sell an iPod five or seven years from now when every cell phone can access your entire music library wherever you are."
I've never like the whole network idea. I was happier coding back in the days of client/server architecture. Please keep in mind that I have no technical merit for my argument
I keep diverging from my ultimate point
Well the point is they didn't merge (and nor did Apple and IBM), so what else is new.
This sound more like some kind of hopeless, unrequited longing for a beautiful girl. Apple has style and pizzaz and Sun doesn't, but oh how Sun longs for them! The chairman of Sun recently spoke of having an "iPod moment" around something or other, probably a new line of servers or piece of software. It wasn't, but I think we can guess where he was coming from.
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tournoun pas maï
Both companies were at one time the main producer of Unix workstations (Sun during the 90s, Apple today)
Um, just because OSX is Unix-based does not make a Mac a Unix workstation. Unix workstations were traditionally used for engineering and 3-D visualization tasks, (c.f. Abaqus, NASTRAN, Catia, Adams, ANSYS, Cadence). Not that current Macs couldn't handle these tasks, but the software isn't available. No workstation-class software -> not a workstation.
Doesn't mean they're not nice machines, though. If I hadn't just bought an Ultra 20, I'd have my money down on a new 20" iMac.
Just junk food for thought...
and has been spiralling Sun turd style down the toilet for years. The company has a decreasing number of products that actually generate money because McNealy believes that his enemy is still Microsoft and the best way to defeat Microsoft is to give products away for free. I honestly think he needs to evaluate his business model for both software and hardware while Sun still has cash reserves and brands that the market cares about because he is pissing away a lot of goodwill with his ludicrous 'unique selling proposition'.
Oh, I'm one Linux geek who's always admitted that Apple gives you something for your money. Had a job using Apple machines for a couple years, and I check out floor displays of Apples every time I wander by one. It's just that, to us Linux geeks who dumpster dive for 686 chips and 10-G drives and Dell shells behind dwellings of Windows lusers (who are chucking their old hardware like Kleenex), anything more expensive than "free" is pricey. To be a Linux user is to see it *rain* perfectly good hardware every day! What, people go into stores and *pay* for these things? Heck, I gotta shovel 'em off the lawn!
It's a logical idea at some point I guess, but why would
... Sun has nothing of value anymore
Apple which is successful, has a positive culture, and a
great financial upside, anything to do with Sun which is
circling the drain and whose culture is dead, and who stock
cannot even hit $5 over the last 5 years now?
Apple could perhaps leverage Sun's upper end hardware, but
the chances of anyone pulling that off with what is going on
at Sun are pretty low
but their past and their name.
Apple on the other hand has returned from the grave, and
really taken off because they are consumer oriented.
Scott McNealy is a loser who will milk Sun dry while
flushing it down the toilet, if he cannot have it, no one
will.
Scott M. couldn't have shared power with Steve J. Hell would freeze over first. Imagine the conference room discussions!
Steve: Check this out! Its stunning! It looks great, it works great. Its fast and reliable and it does something nobody else can figure out how to make money with.
Scott: Cool! Lets give it away to piss off microsoft!
Steve: No no, we can SELL this. We can make money on it.
Scott: Yeah, but how does that help our primary goal?
Steve: It does, I just said it would be profitable.
Scott: So what? It doesn't hurt Microsoft! Forget it. Give it away so nobody else can make money with the same kind of thing. In the long run we'll win because we'll hurt Bill.
****** End of merger plan *******
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Value includes all sorts of things that do not generally appear in specifications charts, not least of which are:
Not to mention all sorts of things that *do* appear in specs charts of high-quality machines, but are selectively ignored in the specs charts of cheap machines, such as: