They have just over 5.7 BILLION dollars in various securities and are close to breaking even.
Not anymore, they don't. Check the Feb '04 Q4. Its down to $5.161B as reported for Dec 28, 03. That's a reduction in net cash assets of $580m since the value you reported ($5.741B) which was for Jun '03 (you did read it the right way round, I presume?).
Anyway, the size of their cash balance is irrelevant here. What you need to look at is Sun's declining revenue from hardware sales which was down 9% over the last half of '03 compared to the last half of '03. If that trend continues, they will need to show the market some real increases in income this year in order to lift their stock out of the toilet. if they can't do it selling hardware, they will have to sell something else and Java is the biggest something else they have right now.
The long term downward trend in sales is pretty ominous for Sun. Of course, they could just use that cash mountain for a large-scale profitiable acquisition and get out of the hardware business altogether, but that's not McNealy's style. He'd rather go down with the sinking ship than admit defeat.
Sun in '04 is starting to look a lot like DEC in the late 90's:
rf
My bet is before the year is out Sun will have divested at least part of its interest in Java to one of either: IBM or Oracle. Some folks at Sun may prefer Java to go open source, but Sun needs the cash and Java is something they can sell (it's not like they can sell much hardware these days).
rf
Their stock (SCOX) goes down, SCO issues another ridiculous, headline grabbing press release, their Stock goes up again. It'll be interesting to see how long they can keep this going without setting foot in court, or running out of stupid publicity stunts.
the ACLU tries to get the recall election stopped on the premise that punched card voting machines, which actually leave some evidence of how a person voted, are disenfranchising some voters. Presumably, it will be a lot fairer if everybdy is disenfranchised by the universal adoption of electronic voting machines that leave no trail whatsoever.
Actually, it is working, just check their stock price.
They would be stupid to reveal all the code they are claiming is borrowed from System V, as well as the details of any analysis that was carried out. Bottom line is: it doesn't really matter if they have a case or not, as spreading FUD about Linux, while boosting their own stock are their only aims.
I like the Mandrake distro a lot and it's a good thing that they're not putting ads in the packaged version (which is what I buy). If the revenue helps them to keep going then it's probsbly a good thing. I don't think it will be healthy for Linux if we are left with just one or two distros to choose from (soon little choice becomes no choice).
If you don't want to pay to support Mandrake's efforts and don't want ads, there are still alternatives, but how many of the free distros will be able to keep going with little or no revenue to cover their costs?
The remaining Beatles own the name Apple when associated with Music in any way, shape or form. The other Apple went ahead and did it anway, so now it's time to pay up.
All this probably could have been avoided if Jobs had gone over to Maccas house and smoked the peace pipe (ahem) with him. The resulting Instant Karma would have ensured a profitable and harmonious partnership between the remaining Beatoids and the Shoeless Wonder. Alas, it was not to be, and so a few more lawyers get to add to their retirement fund, Macca and Ringo get some spare change to add to their respective piles and nothing much really changes.
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They have just over 5.7 BILLION dollars in various securities and are close to breaking even.
Not anymore, they don't. Check the Feb '04 Q4. Its down to $5.161B as reported for Dec 28, 03. That's a reduction in net cash assets of $580m since the value you reported ($5.741B) which was for Jun '03 (you did read it the right way round, I presume?).
Anyway, the size of their cash balance is irrelevant here. What you need to look at is Sun's declining revenue from hardware sales which was down 9% over the last half of '03 compared to the last half of '03. If that trend continues, they will need to show the market some real increases in income this year in order to lift their stock out of the toilet. if they can't do it selling hardware, they will have to sell something else and Java is the biggest something else they have right now.
The long term downward trend in sales is pretty ominous for Sun. Of course, they could just use that cash mountain for a large-scale profitiable acquisition and get out of the hardware business altogether, but that's not McNealy's style. He'd rather go down with the sinking ship than admit defeat.
Sun in '04 is starting to look a lot like DEC in the late 90's: rf
My bet is before the year is out Sun will have divested at least part of its interest in Java to one of either: IBM or Oracle. Some folks at Sun may prefer Java to go open source, but Sun needs the cash and Java is something they can sell (it's not like they can sell much hardware these days).
rf
Their stock (SCOX) goes down, SCO issues another ridiculous, headline grabbing press release, their Stock goes up again. It'll be interesting to see how long they can keep this going without setting foot in court, or running out of stupid publicity stunts.
the ACLU tries to get the recall election stopped on the premise that punched card voting machines, which actually leave some evidence of how a person voted, are disenfranchising some voters. Presumably, it will be a lot fairer if everybdy is disenfranchised by the universal adoption of electronic voting machines that leave no trail whatsoever.
Actually, it is working, just check their stock price.
They would be stupid to reveal all the code they are claiming is borrowed from System V, as well as the details of any analysis that was carried out. Bottom line is: it doesn't really matter if they have a case or not, as spreading FUD about Linux, while boosting their own stock are their only aims.
If you don't want to pay to support Mandrake's efforts and don't want ads, there are still alternatives, but how many of the free distros will be able to keep going with little or no revenue to cover their costs?
All this probably could have been avoided if Jobs had gone over to Maccas house and smoked the peace pipe (ahem) with him. The resulting Instant Karma would have ensured a profitable and harmonious partnership between the remaining Beatoids and the Shoeless Wonder. Alas, it was not to be, and so a few more lawyers get to add to their retirement fund, Macca and Ringo get some spare change to add to their respective piles and nothing much really changes.