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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.
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 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.
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.
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
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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You mean like this?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
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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"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.