Well, although the thing above was moderated funny, there is actually a part of truth in that for some of us.
I got my father a laptop as gift, complete with installed linux (mandrake in my case) setup and ready to use, with the major things on the desktop one click away.
He is very happily browsing with mozilla and writing things with openoffice.
Total ammount of techsupport needed.. Way down from before..
It is vindication and approval from the industry. THAT is priceless.
if only the world was this simple. The industry approval does get you sales, true enough. But we definitely live in a time where such things tend to be short lived. Further the big corporations worldwide "have" to focus on short term to "meet quarterly targets", and this is something where you have to spend a lot of money, with no immediate payback.
oh, I agree there is a lot of money, but the orginal message talked about 1/10 of the x86 market... and that is a LOT of money.
Re:What day of the week is it?
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Well, then there is the groupof use who grew up on Unix (and Sun-Os in mycase) and switched to Linux because of cost. Most of us (though few), while Linux users still have fond memories.
A bit strongly worded, but still in the case of Sun you are more right than normally. I used to work in a place with Sun boxes, and we actually got good suppoert from them (specially compared to the crappy service we got from HP on the hp-ux workstations)
but the problem is.. the money you speak of is not currently available on anything except the x86 platform.. It is so dominating. The money is in that market.. period. It is the same: If 1/10 of the money used worldwide to remove spam/viruses/malware and such from windows systems was used to help linux grow, we would have a mature linux in no time.
Oh I agree with you on certain level, each company need to focus to beat competitors. But most companies do not need to have an "enemy" at every turn, as it seems to me Sun needs.
Re:Sun can be a champion-- but how?
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 1
Indeed, I think that the only way Sun can survive in the long run is to become a "mini IBM". That is have clear divisions doing many things.
So for example:
-Consulting
-big iron (ie Spark)
-small iron (ie x86 based servers)
-systems (solaris)
-Software (java et al.)
and so on.. in and enviroment where not one of them is a top dog internally. You need to give each subdivision the power to try to make good results without tying them down too much. If you tie down parts too much for a "common goal" you are betting all your horses on that one strategy.. but if you let many to run.. who knows what is the winning horse.
AS you point out, it is the economics of it. I do not think that IBM or anyone else can get enough money out of a thing like that. Verifying and certififying code with formal method is really Bitch..
So, the costs to make the whole thing are staggering and if you do that for linux, you have to release the code.. thus.. well.. where is the money to be made?
Well, it seems to me that Sun as corporation has allways needed an Enemy to fight against.
Re:A lot of enterprise and carrier class customers
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Indeed, but the thing Sun is worried about is the question: How long? (until linux is mature enough at the speed it is going forward)
Re:Still can't see how Sun will survive
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
to large extent I agree with you, but have to make a few points:
-Solaris still has many features that are not atlast yet in Linux, like the partitioning of processors.
-Some people also bought the smaller Sun boxes for the same reliability and support.
Re:It's all about the hardware
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
well, the real problem for Sun in the spark line is the development money. Each time they design a new chip, they have to spend way more money for each chip they expect to sell than AMD/Intel as the numbers of x86 chips sold is so much higher. This pushes the price of their chips up in comparision, and this again makes their market smaller compared to the x86 chips that seem to be pushing hard towards the same goals. So.. while x86 might be ways off, there is much more development money available on that side.
Re:From the memory hole...
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Well, you do have to remember that regardless of the reason, that money still helped those lawsuits.
Re:What day of the week is it?
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Well the thing is, Sun is in trouble. Thus they are trying different strategies to get out. I do not think they(or many others) currently have a clear vision of how to make money in the scale they did around -99/-00. But their organisation is still atlest partly geared towards that level.
Until/If they notice that one strategy will actually start making them heaps of money, they are likely to continue moving all around the field.
Well.. The real reason for those cards is twofold:
1) Get to know buying patterns of customers and then datamine that for links and marketing use.
2)Try to help to keep you to keep coming to their store. That is why you see these progressive programs where if you buy for more than $ XXX you get more benefits.
Well, given the recent things, like the article on the school tracking students.. I am afraid that your tinhat mode thing might be reality in too near future.
Well Gnu is hardly linux, but I do agree with you on the priciple. The UNIX vendors seem to have noticed the high popularity of the linux and taken steps to try to make their offerings more aluring to the new crop of techies that think that Linux is the way UNIx should be.
The funny part is.. though my first UNIX was Sun-os and I used solaris for a long time, the world of linus now seems so natural that whenever I use Solaris (or AIX) I want the GNU versions of everything.
I do not fear Technology. On the contrary, I am of those people who like new technology.
But there are many cases where the actual use of the technology is wrong.
To put it shortly, it is not the fact that you use RFID to track runners on a marathon that is scary. I mean they can just toss the thing immediately after the run. It is when technologies like this are used to track people in sutuations where they have no practical opportunity to say no, that scares me.
I see next step to be a town adapting this, by majority vote. Thus everyone who is against it is obviously a criminal. Next step is a nation. Next step is 1984.
There is an corollary to murphy's law stating that:
"Time is a race between software engineers and universe. Software engineers try to make programs more and more foolproof. Universe tries to make more and more fools. Sofar Universe is winning"
Well, you might not choose it (nor me), but you have to remember that quite many people still remember the Nescape brand as a browser. Whereas Firefox is a new brand and really the number of people aware of it is low.
Slashdot Mirror
But repeat this across a few sites that check the sender, and ith crosscorrelation you can very fast get the addresses of those 10000.
I got my father a laptop as gift, complete with installed linux (mandrake in my case) setup and ready to use, with the major things on the desktop one click away.
He is very happily browsing with mozilla and writing things with openoffice.
Total ammount of techsupport needed.. Way down from before..
Is war on internet porn coming up next? Since obviously it is bad for the society...
if only the world was this simple. The industry approval does get you sales, true enough. But we definitely live in a time where such things tend to be short lived. Further the big corporations worldwide "have" to focus on short term to "meet quarterly targets", and this is something where you have to spend a lot of money, with no immediate payback.
oh, I agree there is a lot of money, but the orginal message talked about 1/10 of the x86 market... and that is a LOT of money.
Well, then there is the groupof use who grew up on Unix (and Sun-Os in mycase) and switched to Linux because of cost. Most of us (though few), while Linux users still have fond memories.
A bit strongly worded, but still in the case of Sun you are more right than normally. I used to work in a place with Sun boxes, and we actually got good suppoert from them (specially compared to the crappy service we got from HP on the hp-ux workstations)
but the problem is.. the money you speak of is not currently available on anything except the x86 platform.. It is so dominating. The money is in that market.. period. It is the same: If 1/10 of the money used worldwide to remove spam/viruses/malware and such from windows systems was used to help linux grow, we would have a mature linux in no time.
Oh I agree with you on certain level, each company need to focus to beat competitors. But most companies do not need to have an "enemy" at every turn, as it seems to me Sun needs.
So for example:
-Consulting
-big iron (ie Spark)
-small iron (ie x86 based servers)
-systems (solaris)
-Software (java et al.)
and so on.. in and enviroment where not one of them is a top dog internally. You need to give each subdivision the power to try to make good results without tying them down too much. If you tie down parts too much for a "common goal" you are betting all your horses on that one strategy.. but if you let many to run.. who knows what is the winning horse.
So, the costs to make the whole thing are staggering and if you do that for linux, you have to release the code.. thus.. well.. where is the money to be made?
Well, it seems to me that Sun as corporation has allways needed an Enemy to fight against.
Indeed, but the thing Sun is worried about is the question: How long? (until linux is mature enough at the speed it is going forward)
to large extent I agree with you, but have to make a few points:
-Solaris still has many features that are not atlast yet in Linux, like the partitioning of processors.
-Some people also bought the smaller Sun boxes for the same reliability and support.
well, the real problem for Sun in the spark line is the development money. Each time they design a new chip, they have to spend way more money for each chip they expect to sell than AMD/Intel as the numbers of x86 chips sold is so much higher. This pushes the price of their chips up in comparision, and this again makes their market smaller compared to the x86 chips that seem to be pushing hard towards the same goals. So.. while x86 might be ways off, there is much more development money available on that side.
Well, you do have to remember that regardless of the reason, that money still helped those lawsuits.
Until/If they notice that one strategy will actually start making them heaps of money, they are likely to continue moving all around the field.
1) Get to know buying patterns of customers and then datamine that for links and marketing use.
2)Try to help to keep you to keep coming to their store. That is why you see these progressive programs where if you buy for more than $ XXX you get more benefits.
Well, given the recent things, like the article on the school tracking students.. I am afraid that your tinhat mode thing might be reality in too near future.
Atleast in the case of this, I have a choise. In the Case of a National ID, not really...
The funny part is.. though my first UNIX was Sun-os and I used solaris for a long time, the world of linus now seems so natural that whenever I use Solaris (or AIX) I want the GNU versions of everything.
You forgot the "For now" part.
But there are many cases where the actual use of the technology is wrong.
To put it shortly, it is not the fact that you use RFID to track runners on a marathon that is scary. I mean they can just toss the thing immediately after the run. It is when technologies like this are used to track people in sutuations where they have no practical opportunity to say no, that scares me.
I see next step to be a town adapting this, by majority vote. Thus everyone who is against it is obviously a criminal. Next step is a nation. Next step is 1984.
"Time is a race between software engineers and universe. Software engineers try to make programs more and more foolproof. Universe tries to make more and more fools. Sofar Universe is winning"
most "phishing" attacks fall into that category.
Well, you might not choose it (nor me), but you have to remember that quite many people still remember the Nescape brand as a browser. Whereas Firefox is a new brand and really the number of people aware of it is low.