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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"
So Apple and Sun almost merged ... however, the way the article is written makes it sound as though we're only concerned with one thing--iPods.
.... And Failed Mergers."
Is this the only product that Apple makes? I thought they also made fairly nice laptops.
Yes, I know iPods are the hot thing right now, but did it talk about any of Sun's products?
McNealy has an iPod, McNealy says iPods will be as archaic as answering machines one day, McNealy seems to think that all Apple has are iPods.
My god, they weren't merging their mp3 players, they were talking about merging architectures and file systems.
Is McNealy really so shallow to as to say, "I bought your media player and it's pretty good but it's going to be obsolete someday and that's why we won't merge."?
This is the computer science industry, everything becomes obsolete! Apple is not losing money on iPods and they have other technologies to rely on.
What do iPods and their long term reliability have to do with a merger!?
Perhaps this article should have been titled "McNealy Speaks Out About the Mediocre iPod
My work here is dung.
Snapple
Chriss
--
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I'll say it one more time, and make sure you pay attention:
Dollar for dollar, Apple hardware is a bargain. It's not "pricey"... calling something pricey implies it costs more than it's worth. Apple hardware is worth every penny, and I'd say you'd have a really difficult time building comparable equipment for significantly less cost. And when I say comparable, I mean comparable. For example, you can't compare XServe RAID to the cheapass RAID card and 10 drives you coddled together from crap you bought at ComputersRNeat.com.
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
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.
They could go a step more and call their products Smacs.
Sparcle!
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action
An Apple-Sun merger could have been good or terrible.
We could have had OS X on Sun hardware for years by now.
We could have had OS X based on Solaris.
Which is a bug and which is a feature is left as an exercise for the reader.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Sun + Apple = Cider
I want my iSPARC and iFire.
Mmmm, laptop with Sun chips....*drool*
You say you want a revolution....
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.
Low End Mac has more information about the Apple/Sun dealings here (yes, I'm well aware that this article was featured on /. a few weeks back) and here.
Yes, Apple has such an anti-Microsoft streak that they force a Microsoft employee to share the stage with Steve Jobs at his MacWorld keynotes so they experience the reality distortion field before demoing their latest version of Microsoft Office for Mac. To further show Apple's contempt for Microsoft, Jobs just released an iMac that will be able to boot Windows Vista.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
way back when Sun's market cap (now about 11 B) was bigger than Apple's (now about 72B), just two years ago the market caps were about the same
Hey Apple how's it going?
<Apple> Go away loser.
<Sun> Come on, you know you wanted to hook up with me
<Apple> Yea, whatever *puts hand up*
<Sun> You know we could have killed Intel with Sparc
<Apple> Uh huh, haven't you been paying attention? I *LOVE* Intel now
<Sun> *whine* don't be like that, I ALMOST BOUGHT YOU
<Apple> Uh huh, all talk, no action
<Sun> HEY EVERYONE, I KNEW THIS BITCH BACK WHEN SHE WAS A THREE DOLLAR WHORE, SHE'S MINE STILL
<Apple> Someone call security and get this loser out of here
* Security runs in and grabs Sun by the shoulders *
<Security> Sorry, private party, you're not on the list, you're gonna have to leave
<Sun> Get your hands off of me
* Sun storms out *
<Java> Sun baby, come on over my place
<Sun> Oh gawd, not you again, you're looking pretty beat up baby, every time I talk you up I look like an idiot
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
Now that Apple is switching to Intel hardware we will know the truth. I think we will see similar hardware in apple and non-apple platforms, and we will see the prices, and truth will be told.
Personally I believe people who buy into Apple pay a premium for their hardware and their OS. It is simple economics - smaller market share, they have to make a higher yield per machine to make enough money to stay afloat, whereas Microsoft/Dell/*insert notebook manufacturer here* can stay afloat on much thinner margins by sheer volume.
ipod sparc
Ouch, not in my pocket...
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.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
You mean like this?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
While computer power and storage can be seen to double every 18 months, the same cannot be said for RF spectrum. There are hard limits to how much data can be packed into a given wireless network. Using the cellular network as a personalized radio station with iPod-level audio fidelity is more than a few years off. Voice calls only need ~8kbps, and carriers already have capacity problems.
One thing Sun does have which Apple needs is a fast kernel. OS X has a horrible system call overhead (caused largely by Mach port overheads, and by multiple indirection in traps), and is by far the slowest kernel I have had the opportunity to work with. Aqua on top of a Solaris kernel would be close to my ideal system. If Sun had not dumped OpenStep, I would probably be using an OpenStep/Solaris box now instead of a Mac.
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Sun buying out Apple or Sun merging into Apple?
In either case, I think that would have spelled disaster for these companies.
Apple doesn't have the mindset to enter the server market. Apple's server offerings have been novel toys in the industry, but few would agree that Apple has truely offered any server product worth its salt. Having Apple absorb Sparc and Solaris server technologies probably would have killed off those Sun products.
Sun would have destroyed Apple's innovation and creativity. Sun spent the better part of the 90's innovating through litegation, bringing MS to court as a way to try and compete with the behemoth rather then creating any good and innovative product to fight against MS. Sun stagnated developing the Sparc and Solaris lines as they dumped money trying to sue MS for anti-competitive business practices. Java suffered for about 5 years because of this, instead of improving the technology, Sun simply crippled it on the world's most dominant platform. Sun's current method of innovation is to create OEM PC Linux desktops and tweak a Linux distro to be more Java friendly.
Would Sun want to enter the consumer electronic's market? Would Solaris technologies enter OSX? Apple would not have embraced Linux the way Sun has. Apple wouldn't embrace Open Source the way Sun did. Open Office probably would have been turned into AppleWorks for retail sale. I can't see two more different companies in terms of overall motivation coming together.
The only thing that is common with the two companies is that they are fledglings trying to gain marketshare against Wintel. But any form of a SNAPPLE company would have failed because of just too many difference of opinions. In fighting between execs from both companies probably would have thrown the resulting company into chaos. Both Sun and Apple have STRONG opinions about their relative companies, I doubt Steve Jobs would have handed over much control to Scott McNealy, and vice versa.
The bottom line is, has Sun and Apple ever partnered or cooperated on ANYTHING?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
"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." While I do understandthe pendulum analogy, I think the answering machine is a terrible example. When I get home and want my messages I want the ease of hitting a button, pushing forward button to go to the next message, erase button to get rid of it etc. I don't want to have to pick up my phone, hold it to my ear, take the phone away from my ear to push 7 for next message or 76 to backup or 84 to delete or whatever combination needed to navigate. I have this service on my phone right now. I finally convinced some tech at the phone company I DIDN'T want this crappy service. I only have it cause the bundle I buy has it and its still cheaper than buying unbundled. The way the tech fixed the problem is he set my answering option to answer after 99 rings or something. I really hated picking up the phone and hearing the stutter dial tone saying I had a message and I knew I was never going in that system to get it. I hate to sound like an apple commercial but I just want shit to work. My life is complicated enought without dealing with the remote answering machine.
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'.
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.
I doubt that Apple really wants Sun's Monolithic kernel. The dicision to use Mach was an architectual one, as they generally provide more stability. The trade off was made, slightly less performance for a more stable environment. This argument has exsisted for ages, but with todays modern speedy hardware, I believe Apple did the right thing in going their kernel.
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
I've seen such comparisons over and over in this forum, and the Macs almost always come out on top for overall value. When you include all the hardware specs the prices are close; Macs are perhaps a couple hundred more. That's putting quality issues aside -- just put a cheap 20" LCD monitor next to the one that comes standard on the iMac and tell me you're getting the same deal. You're not. Then add in the software and the price difference is negligible if it exists at all. That's TCO aside -- Macs are not just prettier than their Wintel counterparts; they are made to last longer and break less. An Apple laptop will take a lot more abuse than a cheap windows laptop. When Jobs announced the intel iMacs someone posted this same ridiculous comment and was proven wrong with actual hardware comparisons. I'm sure you will say such things add "false value" but that's ludicrous; what is false about having to buy a new computer in 2 years? What is false about not having to pay for OS X (even assuming you could run it on your windows machine, which you eventually will be able to)? What is false about getting a better monitor?
OS X certainly "uses" a microkernel, Mach, but it's not used as a microkernel.
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