> why should the market forces that apply to MS not apply to Oracle?
Well, if I remember correctly, Larry Ellison said something like the following. Database cannot be compromised. It has to be secure and reliable. That's one software that businesses depend on, so database is the last software threatened by opensource such as MySQL and PostgreSQL.
Despite how he views database market, speech and QA were pretty funny (broadcasted at http://www.oracle.com/broadband). I read a couple of those articles as well. What he said about Apache having taken over the server market from IIS was pretty interesting. He also said "It's (StarOffice) not awful (audience laugh)". "Netscape 7, not bad."
I like how he speaks and answers questions; he's funny. He spends a fortune for his yachts and stuff, but his putting a lot of money in medical research justifies that (at least I think).
I used to work for a company who was developing a software application for industrial automation system (long sentence). This company had a big contract with a big company, who shall remain nameless. Yes, the main application was developed in C++ (MFC) for performance reasons; however, we also developed a version in Java. I cannot say that it worked great, but it had great potential.
Java version did not sell (while I was staying there) and did not make great progress in terms of marketing; nonetheless, the main reason was not performance. This big company who does industrial automation stuff did not like Java because they were partnered with Microsoft. Before Java really started taking off, Microsoft made sure that Java will not take over their market by partnering and making a bunch of deals.
I am not accusing Microsoft for any wrong doing. The point that I want to make is that many doors were already closed before Java tried to show what it can really do. When we look at today's desktop computer application market, it appears that Java did not succeed because of its performance, but speaking retrospectively, if many doors were open, if Java were tested in many different situations (including this case of industrial automation software), we might be looking at Java very differently. Again, I am just speaking retrospectively.
I am currently developing an application server (in Java) and clients only communicate with the application using web browser. One of reasons is that I don't have to go through cross platform debugging, optimization and installation nightmare, but I also have another compelling reason. I want to make the UI as similar as possible (ideally exactly the same) on all platforms, while we'll need to use different platforms (Win, Mac, etc.) for various reasons. That way it will be so much easier to train people later on.
Yes, we want to take advantage of each platform sometime, but that is not always the case. If you think about training cost and so forth, there are good reasons NOT TO adjust to every platform.
> which humanitarian war will this weapon see the light... I sincerely hope NEVER.
Bill Joy wrote some article and it was published on Wired magazine a couple of years ago. In that, he pointed out the danger of our generation's (in particular, in, what they call, 1st world countries) self-destruction by weapons of mass destruction.
Laser rifle is not exactly a weapon of mass destruction, but it feels like that to me. Now... if I say things like this, people start talking about being right or left, but... this is not about being right or left. It's about having common sense; it's about not taking this fatalist approach and say "Our enemies have weapons, so we need more weapons and more powerful weapons." I embrace technology, but I am not so sure about laser rifle. Suppose fighting a war is absolutely necessary. Let's suppose laser rifle is functional TODAY. Can anyone tell me a compelling reason(s) that, say, Iraq War would be fought better because we have laser rifle today? What's so great about this laser rifle (for anyone except for Defense contractors and their employees)?
> As a college student, majoring in CS, one of the bleakest prospects is the fact that I won't have a job in a couple of years when I graduate.
Maybe it'll (tariff) work for a couple of years, but it is not a great solution in a long run.
One of reasons is that competition works FOR YOU not AGAINST YOU. Inviting competition is always a good thing. Competition raises the level in which people and companies compete. It is true that not everyone can survive the competition, BUT those who have no competition will be extinguished in a long run because they cannot deliver quality or price, and that just does not work for commercial companies.
I can sympathize, but if you really want to work in the IT industry (in US for more than a decade), I don't know if you should be supporting the idea.
Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalism country (maybe some of slashdoters don't but probably most do). It means that whatever we do has to make sense financially in the end in order to thrive. We see that some of open source projects are thriving such as Linux, Apache, and JBoss(of course) but some are dying (if not they will soon because of the fact that they are not thriving financially). Projects like Linux and Apache can thrive and they can even be very profitable as companies like IBM, HP, and Sun are chipping in, but some projects are having tough time financially. And again, stuff that does not make sense financially in this world will die; Darwinism, toasted. This move makes sense; well, trying to make sense in the current political and economical system.
I personally like IBM's (ThinkPad) on-site service (warranty). If your laptop's monitor gets fried, a guy from IBM comes to your office and fix it for you right there. Hard drive, keyboard, same thing.
But whether the price you pay for ($1000.00+?) works for you really depends on your circumstances. If you live in a country side (I don't know, Texas?), it can take hours for tech guy to get your house; on the other hand, if you live in a city like SF, NY, they might be working a couple of blocks away from your office and tech guy can come knock your door within 30 minutes after you call them.
Also this type of service depends on what work you do and how much money you are making. If you are one of super star developer/architect and use computers 60 hrs/wk or more and make 100$/hr plus, money is well worth it. On-site service mitigates your loss to, $200.00 - $300.00? What if you have no warranty and you need to order new computer? You'd lose $1000.00? $2000.00? Maybe more.
I've been working as a software developer, but I never had chance to meet and speak with customers, end-users in my previous jobs. Now that I meet and speak with these people, I find that they have practically no clue whatsoever how much we work to accomplish a certain task. Even though the work I do raises productivity greatly and/or cuts operation cost greatly, they do not see how our digital work equates to their analog work.
I am guessing that law makers are also thinking like this; they don't get. People like Al Gore are very few. Probably people in mass media are, if not the same, similar.
Our (IT workers) overtime is somehow not considered overtime like miners work overtime and our cow-workers work overtime. It is unfortunate, but it may take a while for the general society to realize that IT workers' overtime is same as coal miners' overtime.
Saddam Hussein has been singled out for the cause of the world terror, and the war on Iraq started. Why don't look at the rest of the world and the effect of the war instead of just look at the Iraq situation?
Because of this war, EU has been divided seriously. This is catastrophic to say the least.
The next target perhaps will be North Korea and its nuclear threat. However, is US going to attack NK unilaterally again leaving UN dysfunctional?
How about South America? The region and its political and economical situation seems to be unrelated to this war, but they will play a big part in near future. They have been in economical crisis for years and years. Argentine was completely collapsed. Brazil was saved, but next time, is EU going to tip in? After this war and unilateral action by US?
How about the state of Israel? The war clearly created a big tension between US, its allied countries and the Arab world. Can US provide a diplomatic solution? How about UN (being dysfunctional more than ever)?
These are just a few of consequences of this war. It appears that we have a tough century ahead.
I suppose you are talking about Kurosawa not Kirosawa. There are a bunch of web sites dedicated to the film director, but here's one (http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~adk/kurosawa/AKpage.h tml)
By the way, I agree with those praise Spirited Away. It's a fantastic film, not just an animation.
They have, what they call, Microsoft Interix and I think that you call run k shell or something inside windows (2003?)(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/produ ctinfo/overview/default.asp). I was just watching MS webcast and they are actually looking into Windows/Unix integration pretty seriously ( and Of course, Windows takes command of Unix) If they use BSD licensed code, they can integrate Unix stuff in Windows and commercially distribute their product no problem.
People like you and me distribute our program with full source code if we get our hands on GPL or alike, but not Microsoft (or other big vendors) with their finest army of lawyers in the world (in Tony Blair's voice). Are they (MS) going to open-source? Hmmm... I doubt it, but... are they taking code from open-source? Yeah,... they are already doing it and they will continue to do so in a larger scale.
> The truth will come out sooner or later, and eventually some one will put it into a coherent package. Don't look for it on live television...
The truth will never (almost never) come out. Winners write history. So what we'll know is who's winning at the moment that the book (or online book or whatever) is published.
Well, you don't have to pay when you email your friends, colleagues, etc. people that you know (if you read the article). Hmmm... apparently, not many people have actually read the article. You really don't have to pay money unless you are sending out unsolicited emails.
But I still don't think that this is a great idea. That's my hunch. Email wasn't designed to pay for it under any circumstance including, what you know today, spam. Once any email becomes non-free, free as free beer, it really changes the way in which email is used today. Sounds like a good idea to me generally, but... something doesn't sound right.
Man... what a garbage it was. I'm making some product right now and I'm in charge. Also It's much better (looking) than Win1, 2, and 3. I must be able to tons of money over next 10 years. That's what these slides tell me.
> may we succeed afterward in rebuilding Iraq the way we succeeded in rebuilding Japan and Germany after World War II.
Not likely. Japan was located at the eastern border of the former communism region. Germany (West Germany) was located at the western border of the former communism region. Two key points; they must have had been rebuilt in order for US to stabilize the western world. Now the communism is gone, US does not need these countries. Look back and recall what's been happening in these two countries for the last 10 years. They have been in depression since Berlin wall, and they don't have much to look for. Why? Because US doesn't need these countries any more.
Iraq? Rebuilt? No way, why should Iraq be rebuilt and prosperous? How does it benefit US? It's Ok for US to see Iraq to stay poor and miserable as long as its leader takes side with US like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (after the war). That's the whole point, right?
One of the biggest reasons why people go for MySQL is probably support. PostgreSQL now has 24 hour phone support, provided by Digital Distribution GFS P/L and that's great, but MySQL provides support while MySQL (the company) makes the product. Also they've been running profitable business for the last several years. Also a company like Sun supports MySQL (if you buy their luxury computer). That really makes business feel secure and that's big.
Support is very important. There is a commercial software vendor (not an organization) working on a product; that's also very important. Look at FreeBSD and Linux. Is Linux so much better than FreeBSD? Maybe, maybe not. One thing that I know is that there is Redhat. There's Suse. IBM invests in Linux. Sun also ships their low end servers with Linux installed. Oracle is also investing in Linux. This is huge. How about FreeBSD? Yahoo is using; well, that's great, but does Yahoo help you cluster FreeBSD? I don't think so.
> I beg to differ. Its pretty apparent to anyone you talk to that they know they are breaking the law, they just don't care.
"I" beg to differ. I was working on networking stuff at my uncle's house last weekend. They share Win98 CDs in his household and probably other software as well. They don't think that they are doing anything wrong legally. I have a client who asked me if I have a copy of certain software. I said "No" for various reasons, but I really don't think that she knew anything about copy right laws. If you are working for Fortune 500 companies and what not, yes, they know what implications of violating copy right laws are and what they can and cannot do (should and should not). But once you go out there and meet "normal" citizens, you'll marvel.
I never thought about that, but yes, it can work. People can run a fully functional software WITHOUT installing any software.
> This assumes the client machine has a bootable CDRom.
Well, we can use boot disk instead of CD, right? Even then, they don't have to install any software, so this seems to be a viable solution to me. As a matter of fact, I did create boot disk and tried out Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.com/) and it worked.
>... they are probably preparing for the day when Solaris will be phased out.
They are in business, not gambling, so yes, they need to think about what if, but Solaris is still the core of Sun (like Solaris is the core of N1).
> Wow -- Sun is boosting Linux in a BIG way now.
Why not? Though they were cutting work force dramatically, they are still one of the biggest players in server market and if you look back for the last 10 years, they have achieved quite a lot. 10 years ago, they were nowhere. They were pretty interesting 5 years ago, and now they are competing with players like IBM with head to head, toe to toe. They don't have a big share in low end server market, so they push Linux. Since they built their business around Solaris (Unix), their engineers can easily shift to Linux; training cost is insignificant. So why not?
The negative shift from dot com bubble was so dramatic that, many seem to believe that Sun is turning around the direction that they are going, but I (and probably many other) don't think so. They are in server business, and they are investing a lot there. They established themselves as one of the biggest players in high end server market, so now they are targeting low end as well. While they pursue the whole server market, they push, what they call, N1.
The point is "What's so surprising? What's so unpredictable?"
We are in recession now, which means that stocks are down and small - medium size companies are generally not doing so well. But this is a great time for mega enterprises like Microsoft. They might not like their won stock price, but they love others'; this is a great time for acquisition. If you recall headlines last year and early this year, there were so many acquisitions (by mega enterprises). Big companies are getting even bigger and more powerful. This is not new economy, old economy.
Wouldn't we laugh at Record industry if they go to a 5th world country (politically incorrect) and sue people swapping files there? That's exactly what they are doing.
I realize that file swapping is illegal; it's a form of stealing under the current law, but... what Record industry did appears a little extreme, and it's quite ironic, because pop culture, pop songs are not about obeying the law, yet the one who promotes pop culture enforces the law.
I don't get this. Why are commercial software vendors being threatened? MS doesn't care because they don't care about Java. IBM? Maybe, maybe not. WebSphere is really about the whole package not each component. Tomcat is a component. JBoss is a component, so probably IBM doesn't care, either. Sun? They are thrilled to hear news like this. I don't know if Tomcat/JBoss would lead to Sun sales increase, but as far as Sun is concerned, this is exactly what Sun wants to happen. Tomcat/JBoss, Java is getting as widely adapted as ever and... eventually, they'll go to Sun, the creator and the master of Java, right? They may not be selling iPlanet, but they don't care.
Strategy behind Java is very different from that of.Net or Windows, so Java servers are not being threatened because Tomcat/JBoss alike are getting huge popularity.
Slashdot is about "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters"; it's not exactly for mass majority. That's why people like you and I love this site and post number of messages. It's focused; it targets a certain type of population. This will not affect Slashdot.
Having said that, this Google's acquisition of Pyra Labs is pretty interesting because Google (until today) targets mass majority and Pyra Labs, if I understand correctly, does not target mass majority. Blogging is only for a certain type of population. How would Google transform that into stuff for mass majority if they plan to do so? Interesting to see what they are going to do with Pyra Labs's technologies.
Slashdot Mirror
> why should the market forces that apply to MS not apply to Oracle?
Well, if I remember correctly, Larry Ellison said something like the following. Database cannot be compromised. It has to be secure and reliable. That's one software that businesses depend on, so database is the last software threatened by opensource such as MySQL and PostgreSQL.
Despite how he views database market, speech and QA were pretty funny (broadcasted at http://www.oracle.com/broadband). I read a couple of those articles as well. What he said about Apache having taken over the server market from IIS was pretty interesting. He also said "It's (StarOffice) not awful (audience laugh)". "Netscape 7, not bad."
I like how he speaks and answers questions; he's funny. He spends a fortune for his yachts and stuff, but his putting a lot of money in medical research justifies that (at least I think).
I used to work for a company who was developing a software application for industrial automation system (long sentence). This company had a big contract with a big company, who shall remain nameless. Yes, the main application was developed in C++ (MFC) for performance reasons; however, we also developed a version in Java. I cannot say that it worked great, but it had great potential.
Java version did not sell (while I was staying there) and did not make great progress in terms of marketing; nonetheless, the main reason was not performance. This big company who does industrial automation stuff did not like Java because they were partnered with Microsoft. Before Java really started taking off, Microsoft made sure that Java will not take over their market by partnering and making a bunch of deals.
I am not accusing Microsoft for any wrong doing. The point that I want to make is that many doors were already closed before Java tried to show what it can really do. When we look at today's desktop computer application market, it appears that Java did not succeed because of its performance, but speaking retrospectively, if many doors were open, if Java were tested in many different situations (including this case of industrial automation software), we might be looking at Java very differently. Again, I am just speaking retrospectively.
I am currently developing an application server (in Java) and clients only communicate with the application using web browser. One of reasons is that I don't have to go through cross platform debugging, optimization and installation nightmare, but I also have another compelling reason. I want to make the UI as similar as possible (ideally exactly the same) on all platforms, while we'll need to use different platforms (Win, Mac, etc.) for various reasons. That way it will be so much easier to train people later on.
Yes, we want to take advantage of each platform sometime, but that is not always the case. If you think about training cost and so forth, there are good reasons NOT TO adjust to every platform.
> which humanitarian war will this weapon see the light...
... this is not about being right or left. It's about having common sense; it's about not taking this fatalist approach and say "Our enemies have weapons, so we need more weapons and more powerful weapons." I embrace technology, but I am not so sure about laser rifle. Suppose fighting a war is absolutely necessary. Let's suppose laser rifle is functional TODAY. Can anyone tell me a compelling reason(s) that, say, Iraq War would be fought better because we have laser rifle today? What's so great about this laser rifle (for anyone except for Defense contractors and their employees)?
I sincerely hope NEVER.
Bill Joy wrote some article and it was published on Wired magazine a couple of years ago. In that, he pointed out the danger of our generation's (in particular, in, what they call, 1st world countries) self-destruction by weapons of mass destruction.
Laser rifle is not exactly a weapon of mass destruction, but it feels like that to me. Now... if I say things like this, people start talking about being right or left, but
How about cartoons posted at www.villagevoice.com? This week's cartoon is posted at www.villagevoice.com/fiore/. Good laugh... hmmm... pretty tough one. I kind of link pearly23.tripod.com/htmls/bush-idiot.html, but I don't know what your taste is like.
> As a college student, majoring in CS, one of the bleakest prospects is the fact that I won't have a job in a couple of years when I graduate.
Maybe it'll (tariff) work for a couple of years, but it is not a great solution in a long run.
One of reasons is that competition works FOR YOU not AGAINST YOU. Inviting competition is always a good thing. Competition raises the level in which people and companies compete. It is true that not everyone can survive the competition, BUT those who have no competition will be extinguished in a long run because they cannot deliver quality or price, and that just does not work for commercial companies.
I can sympathize, but if you really want to work in the IT industry (in US for more than a decade), I don't know if you should be supporting the idea.
Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalism country (maybe some of slashdoters don't but probably most do). It means that whatever we do has to make sense financially in the end in order to thrive. We see that some of open source projects are thriving such as Linux, Apache, and JBoss(of course) but some are dying (if not they will soon because of the fact that they are not thriving financially). Projects like Linux and Apache can thrive and they can even be very profitable as companies like IBM, HP, and Sun are chipping in, but some projects are having tough time financially. And again, stuff that does not make sense financially in this world will die; Darwinism, toasted. This move makes sense; well, trying to make sense in the current political and economical system.
I personally like IBM's (ThinkPad) on-site service (warranty). If your laptop's monitor gets fried, a guy from IBM comes to your office and fix it for you right there. Hard drive, keyboard, same thing.
But whether the price you pay for ($1000.00+?) works for you really depends on your circumstances. If you live in a country side (I don't know, Texas?), it can take hours for tech guy to get your house; on the other hand, if you live in a city like SF, NY, they might be working a couple of blocks away from your office and tech guy can come knock your door within 30 minutes after you call them.
Also this type of service depends on what work you do and how much money you are making. If you are one of super star developer/architect and use computers 60 hrs/wk or more and make 100$/hr plus, money is well worth it. On-site service mitigates your loss to, $200.00 - $300.00? What if you have no warranty and you need to order new computer? You'd lose $1000.00? $2000.00? Maybe more.
I've been working as a software developer, but I never had chance to meet and speak with customers, end-users in my previous jobs. Now that I meet and speak with these people, I find that they have practically no clue whatsoever how much we work to accomplish a certain task. Even though the work I do raises productivity greatly and/or cuts operation cost greatly, they do not see how our digital work equates to their analog work.
I am guessing that law makers are also thinking like this; they don't get. People like Al Gore are very few. Probably people in mass media are, if not the same, similar.
Our (IT workers) overtime is somehow not considered overtime like miners work overtime and our cow-workers work overtime. It is unfortunate, but it may take a while for the general society to realize that IT workers' overtime is same as coal miners' overtime.
Saddam Hussein has been singled out for the cause of the world terror, and the war on Iraq started. Why don't look at the rest of the world and the effect of the war instead of just look at the Iraq situation?
Because of this war, EU has been divided seriously. This is catastrophic to say the least.
The next target perhaps will be North Korea and its nuclear threat. However, is US going to attack NK unilaterally again leaving UN dysfunctional?
How about South America? The region and its political and economical situation seems to be unrelated to this war, but they will play a big part in near future. They have been in economical crisis for years and years. Argentine was completely collapsed. Brazil was saved, but next time, is EU going to tip in? After this war and unilateral action by US?
How about the state of Israel? The war clearly created a big tension between US, its allied countries and the Arab world. Can US provide a diplomatic solution? How about UN (being dysfunctional more than ever)?
These are just a few of consequences of this war. It appears that we have a tough century ahead.
> As Kirosawa used to say...
h tml)
I suppose you are talking about Kurosawa not Kirosawa. There are a bunch of web sites dedicated to the film director, but here's one (http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~adk/kurosawa/AKpage.
By the way, I agree with those praise Spirited Away. It's a fantastic film, not just an animation.
They have, what they call, Microsoft Interix and I think that you call run k shell or something inside windows (2003?)(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/produ ctinfo/overview/default.asp). I was just watching MS webcast and they are actually looking into Windows/Unix integration pretty seriously ( and Of course, Windows takes command of Unix) If they use BSD licensed code, they can integrate Unix stuff in Windows and commercially distribute their product no problem.
... they are already doing it and they will continue to do so in a larger scale.
People like you and me distribute our program with full source code if we get our hands on GPL or alike, but not Microsoft (or other big vendors) with their finest army of lawyers in the world (in Tony Blair's voice). Are they (MS) going to open-source? Hmmm... I doubt it, but... are they taking code from open-source? Yeah,
> The truth will come out sooner or later, and eventually some one will put it into a coherent package. Don't look for it on live television...
The truth will never (almost never) come out. Winners write history. So what we'll know is who's winning at the moment that the book (or online book or whatever) is published.
Well, you don't have to pay when you email your friends, colleagues, etc. people that you know (if you read the article). Hmmm... apparently, not many people have actually read the article. You really don't have to pay money unless you are sending out unsolicited emails.
... something doesn't sound right.
But I still don't think that this is a great idea. That's my hunch. Email wasn't designed to pay for it under any circumstance including, what you know today, spam. Once any email becomes non-free, free as free beer, it really changes the way in which email is used today. Sounds like a good idea to me generally, but
Man... what a garbage it was. I'm making some product right now and I'm in charge. Also It's much better (looking) than Win1, 2, and 3. I must be able to tons of money over next 10 years. That's what these slides tell me.
> may we succeed afterward in rebuilding Iraq the way we succeeded in rebuilding Japan and Germany after World War II.
Not likely. Japan was located at the eastern border of the former communism region. Germany (West Germany) was located at the western border of the former communism region. Two key points; they must have had been rebuilt in order for US to stabilize the western world. Now the communism is gone, US does not need these countries. Look back and recall what's been happening in these two countries for the last 10 years. They have been in depression since Berlin wall, and they don't have much to look for. Why? Because US doesn't need these countries any more.
Iraq? Rebuilt? No way, why should Iraq be rebuilt and prosperous? How does it benefit US? It's Ok for US to see Iraq to stay poor and miserable as long as its leader takes side with US like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (after the war). That's the whole point, right?
One of the biggest reasons why people go for MySQL is probably support. PostgreSQL now has 24 hour phone support, provided by Digital Distribution GFS P/L and that's great, but MySQL provides support while MySQL (the company) makes the product. Also they've been running profitable business for the last several years. Also a company like Sun supports MySQL (if you buy their luxury computer). That really makes business feel secure and that's big.
Support is very important. There is a commercial software vendor (not an organization) working on a product; that's also very important. Look at FreeBSD and Linux. Is Linux so much better than FreeBSD? Maybe, maybe not. One thing that I know is that there is Redhat. There's Suse. IBM invests in Linux. Sun also ships their low end servers with Linux installed. Oracle is also investing in Linux. This is huge. How about FreeBSD? Yahoo is using; well, that's great, but does Yahoo help you cluster FreeBSD? I don't think so.
> I beg to differ. Its pretty apparent to anyone you talk to that they know they are breaking the law, they just don't care.
"I" beg to differ. I was working on networking stuff at my uncle's house last weekend. They share Win98 CDs in his household and probably other software as well. They don't think that they are doing anything wrong legally. I have a client who asked me if I have a copy of certain software. I said "No" for various reasons, but I really don't think that she knew anything about copy right laws. If you are working for Fortune 500 companies and what not, yes, they know what implications of violating copy right laws are and what they can and cannot do (should and should not). But once you go out there and meet "normal" citizens, you'll marvel.
I never thought about that, but yes, it can work. People can run a fully functional software WITHOUT installing any software.
> This assumes the client machine has a bootable CDRom.
Well, we can use boot disk instead of CD, right? Even then, they don't have to install any software, so this seems to be a viable solution to me. As a matter of fact, I did create boot disk and tried out Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.com/) and it worked.
> ... they are probably preparing for the day when Solaris will be phased out.
They are in business, not gambling, so yes, they need to think about what if, but Solaris is still the core of Sun (like Solaris is the core of N1).
> Wow -- Sun is boosting Linux in a BIG way now.
Why not? Though they were cutting work force dramatically, they are still one of the biggest players in server market and if you look back for the last 10 years, they have achieved quite a lot. 10 years ago, they were nowhere. They were pretty interesting 5 years ago, and now they are competing with players like IBM with head to head, toe to toe. They don't have a big share in low end server market, so they push Linux. Since they built their business around Solaris (Unix), their engineers can easily shift to Linux; training cost is insignificant. So why not?
The negative shift from dot com bubble was so dramatic that, many seem to believe that Sun is turning around the direction that they are going, but I (and probably many other) don't think so. They are in server business, and they are investing a lot there. They established themselves as one of the biggest players in high end server market, so now they are targeting low end as well. While they pursue the whole server market, they push, what they call, N1.
The point is "What's so surprising? What's so unpredictable?"
We are in recession now, which means that stocks are down and small - medium size companies are generally not doing so well. But this is a great time for mega enterprises like Microsoft. They might not like their won stock price, but they love others'; this is a great time for acquisition. If you recall headlines last year and early this year, there were so many acquisitions (by mega enterprises). Big companies are getting even bigger and more powerful. This is not new economy, old economy.
> ... I'm curious why Sun's own offering is so disparaged.
forte is an IDE; probably, that's why it's not mentioned.
> They don't have anything? ..
Wouldn't we laugh at Record industry if they go to a 5th world country (politically incorrect) and sue people swapping files there? That's exactly what they are doing.
I realize that file swapping is illegal; it's a form of stealing under the current law, but... what Record industry did appears a little extreme, and it's quite ironic, because pop culture, pop songs are not about obeying the law, yet the one who promotes pop culture enforces the law.
> Java servers feel the open-source heat
.Net or Windows, so Java servers are not being threatened because Tomcat/JBoss alike are getting huge popularity.
I don't get this. Why are commercial software vendors being threatened? MS doesn't care because they don't care about Java. IBM? Maybe, maybe not. WebSphere is really about the whole package not each component. Tomcat is a component. JBoss is a component, so probably IBM doesn't care, either. Sun? They are thrilled to hear news like this. I don't know if Tomcat/JBoss would lead to Sun sales increase, but as far as Sun is concerned, this is exactly what Sun wants to happen. Tomcat/JBoss, Java is getting as widely adapted as ever and... eventually, they'll go to Sun, the creator and the master of Java, right? They may not be selling iPlanet, but they don't care.
Strategy behind Java is very different from that of
Slashdot is about "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters"; it's not exactly for mass majority. That's why people like you and I love this site and post number of messages. It's focused; it targets a certain type of population. This will not affect Slashdot.
Having said that, this Google's acquisition of Pyra Labs is pretty interesting because Google (until today) targets mass majority and Pyra Labs, if I understand correctly, does not target mass majority. Blogging is only for a certain type of population. How would Google transform that into stuff for mass majority if they plan to do so? Interesting to see what they are going to do with Pyra Labs's technologies.