In a recent interview with CNET Asia’s Winston Chai, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen said that several venerable computer companies are on a downward slope. Are HP, Sun, Oracle and other the next DEC? Read the editorial at Tech Update. Our editorial on the subject is here.
Are HP, Sun, and Oracle Destined to Flame Out?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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One thing very important to this conversation is that market share != user base size. For example, most home PCs come with Windows, but like me most people who try linux are probably downloading and eventually installing linux over windows. That’s a change in user base but not market share. I can verify the same happens very often on small corporate servers. To get the desired hardware, the computer is bought with a Windows license, but Windows is never used.
Here are the reasons thse companies are unlikely to become the next DEC: HP has been far more flexible and continually sells many high-end servers no matter what the software; Sun is the most likely candidate to have serious problems because their CEO is so stubborn, but at the same time he’s finally realizing the potential of open source, they’re just late to the game (compared to IBM); Oracle will stay afloat for simple reasons – they sell no hardware and the software underneath theirs is irrelevant to them. As long as Oracle continues to provide relatively high quality software and features and services above that of open source they’ll have no problems keeping customers. I think Sun will continue to have the most problems because they’re so stubborn. I believe it’s actually Microsoft that will have the most problems in the long term. Here I’m explaining all of the reasons Microsoft will not survive: http://msversus.webhop.net
What a fucked up article. So much verbiage, my hat’s off to whomever has the patience to plow through.
The interview he based that article on is to the point: Sun has $5bil, and can wait around for the Next Great Thing. Sun should split up into subsidiaries to jump on any competitors they’ll find.
I’m not wanting to insult the author, it’s just that journalists need to write long-ass articles all the time.
“As long as Oracle continues to provide relatively high quality software and features and services above that of open source they’ll have no problems keeping customers. ”
Well Oracle amongst many will have to face cannibalization on the low end of the DB market from things like MySQL, Postgresql, Firebird (not the browser), etc. Stratification is something they will have to watch out for. There’s also their commercial competitors as well, bundling software and service.
Microsoft has always been successful in undermining an existing market from below, exactly as the article points out: simpler, cheaper, fewer features, less customized. Linux is doing the same to UNIX. Many of the Linux vs. UNIX comments today sound just like the PC vs. mainframe comments of 20 years ago. “The PC is a toy, a joke,” etc.
But Linux can grow into larger, more demanding uses without cannibalizing its existing market. The Unices can’t grow downward, though, or they kill their high-end, high-markup market. Hence, in time, Linux wins.
Of course, Microsoft faces the same problem. Windows Server 2003 offers more features, is easier to manage, and may be faster (let’s not talk benchmarks, please!). But now it is Microsoft trying to defend the high-margin product. They are fighting a good fight: the Web edition of WS2003 is cheaper than Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
The beauty of Linux is that Microsoft can’t use normal predatory tactics: i.e., sell at a loss, drive your competitor out of business, and then start marking the prices up again. So I think the most likely outcome is a far less profitable Microsoft. Since Microsoft seems really bad at innovating, I expect them to just run their cash cow into the ground: make money while they can, and eventually run out of steam. Rather like SCO, I’d say: no longer a technology company, merely the owner of old intellectual property, living off the rent from innovators who have long ago moved on.
I’m seeing it at work, at a large company: people are starting to accept that open source software is actually safer than proprietary software from a smaller company. They still feel safe with Microsoft and IBM, of course. But better to use OSS than third-tier commercial products.
Ask yourself: would you feel better right now with an OSS package, or a PeopleSoft package?
I don’t want to be complacent, but I do think the future will be good, and with less Microsoft around. Meanwhile, to contradict myself, I use a third-tier commercial product, Mac OS X, and love every minute of it. Probably the same mad urges that made me love BeOS!
You mean somebody’s *not* predicting the death of Apple now? Or are they still dying?
Apple Computer, dying since 1976.
According to Goethe Faust 1:
Everything what comes into being,
is worth to go under.
The original text is much more sophisticated:
Alles was entsteht,
ist wert das es zugrunde geht.
Big companies can’t produce disruptive technologies, that’s why there’s no such thing as Java or laser printers.
Big Company may innovate, however, a monopolist like Microsoft (or IBM in the 70s) doesn’t innovate. in 1975, Amhdal machines were far more powerful than IBMs. Today, IE lags far behind Opera/Mozilla feature-wise.
Back in the time when Lotus had 80% of the spreadsheet marketshare, Microsoft won through innovation, because they were the challenger. Since 1995, can you please show me one single significant disruptive feature in Excel? There isn’t any.
Can you show me a significant feature in WinXP that wasn’t available in WinNT or Win95 back in 1996? there isn’t neither, just a bunch of new apps (CD burning, video editing, soon antivirus) that will kill small competitors, but these arent’ disruptive nor OS features strictly speaking, just bundled apps.
SGI is most likely toast, as Jim Clark realized when he left in 1993. HP will probably morph into a diversified IT company like IBM that emphasizes professional services, while still selling printers and other products. SCO has become an IP boutique. Sun is an interesting case; they have a deep technical bench and need to find a better way to monetize it. As Christensen points out, all technologies eventually become commoditized, so Sun has to keep innovating in their own labs and/or by making the right acquisition bets. Interoperability with Linux is critical, I think they have to let their customers decide between Linux and Solaris.
Sun
While Sun is doing the worst of all three companies listed, it is also putting a lot of money into researching some of the tough problems in computers:
– massive multithreading support on the cpu
– overall system administration
– grid-type computing infrastructure
– enterprise software development
Sun is shackled for the most part to SPARC which will either make them or break them. Developing your own processor, support tools, compilers, etc., is a big sink hole of time and attention.
As Java came out of Sun’s research, we can only hope that Sun is able to repeat the feat. Sun’s challenge is to productize their technology in such a way that it makes money for them. Java was very successful in that it sold a lot of Sun servers even though Java itself is not a huge money maker.
Sun is fighting the good fight against Microsoft. Let us hope the “war mentality” that Sun has developed in this fight does not poison the Sun culture of innovation and fun. If Sun goes back to their original “build new great things” culture and attitude, they will survive and prosper.
Otherwise, faced with a massive tsunami of hardware commoditization in low and mid-range computers, Sun is in for very tough times as they adjust to being a high-end player only.
HP
HP is following in the footsteps of Dell, slowly but surely. There is little new technology from HP. Most of the current CEO’s efforts are focused on cost-cutting.
On the whole, HP has good karma. They’ve treated their customers well and have a human culture.
For the future, HP will face greater and greater price pressure from Dell and new players from Asia.
However, if their CEO is effective at reducing costs, HP will be able to fend off most of the price competition.
To grow the company, however, HP must find a way to also fund new product development. This is where the current CEO is at her weakest. Even within HP’s most valuable franchise — printers — there is little innovation.
Overall, HP has some breathing room due to the cost cutting, but needs to focus on product development for the long-term health of the company.
Oracle
Oracle suffers from bad karma and arrogance. Long happy with exploiting their customers, Oracle finds itself faced with many low cost competitors as well as IBM and Microsoft coming strong after them. And Sybase picking up the scraps.
A telling sign that Oracle is in trouble — more and more of its revenue comes from “services”. This means they are shipping more and more hard to understand, hard to use, hard to install, full of bugs software than is long-term smart for the company.
A customer has to ask themselves “Why would I buy from Oracle?”. There are fewer and fewer answers to be found. Sure, the Oracle database is solid. But it is also incredibly expensive — the most expensive in the world. And Oracle support is also very expensive. Oracle has not demonstrated that they actually care about their customers.
As Ellison himself has pointed out, many software licenses that have been sold are sitting around not being used. And that should sound like a red-alart klaxon to Ellison.
Oracle is faced with having to repackage its technology to make it more accessible and of greater value to the customer. If they fail to do this, they will face serious inroads from competitors.
And ultimately, Oracle must decide what kind of company it’s really going to be. Are they going to focus just on high-end databases for high-end servers? Or are they going to accept a reduced profit structure and defend their franchise on all levels — from MySQL on the low end to DB2 on the high-end?
Oracle is in the best shape of the three companies and Ellison is smart and ruthless. I predict Oracle will go through pain, but stay around for the long term.
Ask to Joe user if he prefers to run win XP or MacOSX or X11 + bash + rpm.
Without IBM and other big ones, Linux would still be a hobbyst project. The choice between Linux and MS or Apple is not the choice between freedom and tyranny, but just which world-wide company you choose to help. If you want to work all your nights for IBM and friends for free, that’s your choice, but your are just a pawn in a fight between titans. You are not a Russian in 1917, and you don’t write a new page of History. Whatever MS or Linux or AmigaOS wins, capitalism always wins at the end.
Sure there are the tides from the big players, the IBM’s and Microsoft’s of the world. However, in the tidepools, there is much interesting life to be found. And the small players get a chance to do something of importance.
Much of Linux has come from the tidepools. And because of the GPL, must return to the tidepools. Let us hope the seas continue to be kind and nutrients keep washing up to the tidepools.
And you are absolutely right about “capitalism” which of course is a handy euphemism:
“Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owner a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.”
— Ayn Rand
HP will rue the Compaq buyout. Eventually Carly Fiorina will be fired. They used to be a real innovator back when the original Hewlett ran the thing. I expect them to drop HP-UX eventually. Their printer unit will remain profitable but their handheld units will eventually be surpassed by Symbian and Linux smart phones. It’s a damn shame that all of their products (except printers) have become so shoddily manufactured. My organization has decided to never buy HP portable computers again.
Oracle will eventually start doing what CodeWeavers is doing with Wine, i.e. polishing, integrating an open source technology. They’ll last as long as Larry doesn’t try to get in the hardware market again.
Sun needs to cut the apron strings w/Java and stop trying to control it so much. They also need to put more expense into OpenOffice.org otherwise it will be a complete waste of money and they may pull out of it. I can’t imagine any significant sales of StarOffice unless it gets better performance. I wonder also if Sun may begin encouraging companies to clone its hardware to expand marketshare. However, seeing how protective companies can be about their proprietary hardware (Apple cough cough), this probably is only wishful thinking. They may eventually not use SPARCs on their low and middle-end models depending on how well Opteron progresses. It could be a great selling point: offering Solaris, Linux, and … Windows all available preinstalled and supported by Sun.
OSAlert started out as a site to discuss operating systems features and innovations and now we have a discussion on capitalism and the future of the IT industry…
The other news of the day are:
1) God is dead.
2) The truce in the middle east has been broken by another Palestinian suicide attack and retaliation by Israeli helicopters.
3) SCO CEO Darl McBride has just given another interview, indicating that the Linux kernel code is a derivative work of UNIX System V.
ah yes, lest I forget:
4) Apple is doomed: they cheated on their G5 SPEC benchmarks.
Right on all counts. Good summary.
It’s still about operating systems here on OSAlert. We’ve just moved up to discussing a more important OS —
The New World Order Operating System.
(NWOOS… rhymes with NOOSE).
First off….Oracle wont have to deal with the low-end stuff like Firebird, MySQL, etc because Oracle doesn’t sell to the low end.
Second, as to this stuff:
“This means they are shipping more and more hard to understand, hard to use, hard to install, full of bugs software than is long-term smart for the company. ”
Oracles software, the DB being a prime example, is easier to use now than ever. Easier to install and easier (by a long shot) to maintain.
“But it is also incredibly expensive — the most expensive in the world. And Oracle support is also very expensive.”
Yep. The DB is very costly. And worth every damn penny. So is the support costs for it. I have not found anything close to Oracle db tech support anywhere…period.
I have no doubt Oracle will do what is necessary to stay in business for a *long* time.
>>OSAlert started out as a site to discuss operating systems features and innovations and now we have a discussion on capitalism and the future of the IT industry…<<
there is still plenty of good discussion on OS’s. myself i dont believe analysts. they make money by guessing. i need a job like that!
>>The other news of the day are:
1) God is dead.<<
but rose on the third day or did you not hear?
>>2) The truce in the middle east has been broken by another Palestinian suicide attack and retaliation by Israeli helicopters.<<
isreal needs to give these terrorists a 8 o clock meeting with their maker.
>>3) SCO CEO Darl McBride has just given another interview, indicating that the Linux kernel code is a derivative work of UNIX System V.<<
this will be funny next year i bet hehe.
>>ah yes, lest I forget:
4) Apple is doomed: they cheated on their G5 SPEC benchmarks.<<
industry standard practice, should we expect otherwise? (i would but i expect too much)
and just for fun i will sign out with this piece of info.
http://www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html
God Bless!
“First off….Oracle wont have to deal with the low-end stuff like Firebird, MySQL, etc because Oracle doesn’t sell to the low end. ”
Two words. Squeeze play. It’s not an issue of Oracle selling in the low end. But an issue of the low-end not staying put. Also as already mentioned there’s the high-end with IBM’s DB offering. Complacency can be fatal to a company.
The computer market is less than 50 years old. It will end up highly commmoditized and barely profitable. That is the reality of almost all business sectors.
In 1910 the US had over 400 carmakers it now has two (Chrysler is a Daimler subsidiary in all but name). Many of the old names live on Cadillac, Buick, Lincoln etc but these are merely brand names of the masive Ford and GM conglomerates.
Worldwide the number of vehicle makers is rapidly shrinking. There are only two Japanese, one Italian and four German independent carmakers. The once mighty British vehicle industry is now entirely in foreign hands except for a few tiny ultra-niche car makers like TVR and Morgan. So you can drive a Ford-Aston Martin, A GM-Saab, a Renault-Nissan, a Daimler-Mitsubishi or a Proton-Lotus.
Expect a lot of the major IT players to disappear or change direction. Expect big new players to emerge in India, Russia and Latin America.
The reality is that in 20 years Suse may be bigger than IBM and the worlds biggest software company may be located in Mumbai, India.
exactly anonymous. and add to that that the so called first world markets are very saturated and mature. There is not an infinite room to grow. Latin america, most Asia and Russia are the places where growth is still possible.
isreal needs to give these terrorists a 8 o clock meeting with their maker.
Yeah, kill those suicide bombers, that’ll teach the rest of ’em!
this discussion is, sorry, bullshit.
Computers are made to solve getting business done, or as entertainment Boxes, or what ever. These Maschines depends on the needs of their users.
Some users have mission-critical classified Apps, they would use mainframes (like S/390) or established Unixes like HP-UX, AIX, Sinix (as a flavor of), SunOS/Solaris.
Some users have classified some Apps as important but not mission-critical, they can use the cheapest avaible on the market, which means Linux or BSD, oftenly.
The home-Users can use every OS they like and the can get for their money (if a “home”-user like a Mainframe, why not ? )
Simply : it depends on your needs.
So, if Linux getting from the Community and/or Companies like HP, IBM the missing things to meet the criterias of mission critical SW, then it will be there. Until now, there is a lot of space for AIX, HP-UX, Solaris. But not on non-mission critical-Systems. Today.
To support more then one OS inflate costs of your IT-Department. So they like to reduce it.
Hey, thats the market. This is something with no link to romantic feelings.
It concentrates on demands : there is a decresing demand for AIX, HP-UX, Solaris,
there is a increasing demand for Linux, there is a niche demand for MacOSX, there is a demand for Windows. And there are some, lets say, misterious things, like MorphOS, AmigaOS, BeOS, a.s.o, with no truly demand today, but with hope. These are candidates for the Grand Prix of “The mostly not needed OS on Earth”.
Extrem opinion ? Yes,
it demands
OS’s are nothing more then the roots to get work done. They are important, but no selfontained, they need Applications. Applications can run on more then one OS, if not : you have no choice. The OS is nothing to think about, it must run without givig brain-damages to get your apps up and usable.
So, choose the OS depending on your needs and your budget. Take the best you can get. If this means something is obsolete, thats the rule of god old Mr. Darwin. Dinosaurs died, it could be the same for established OS, like above mentioned. Possibly Linux and BSD a getting the price of evolution, until the next OS will be avaible to blast them into history and past.
Possibly the Dinosaurs today are SunOS/Solaris, AIX, HP-UX a.s.o.
but remember the Mainframe. they are still living and they have a great Come-Back (with Linux). Why ? There is a demand on the market of realy mission critical, HA Platforms, which also can Unix not fullfill.
rgds,
Frank
Yeah, what’s with all this about the business side of IT. We should be talking about what features we want in the next rev of Intellivision OS.
> The beauty of Linux is that Microsoft can’t use normal
> predatory tactics: i.e., sell at a loss, drive your
> competitor out of business, and then start marking the
> prices up again.
Here are some comments for common arguments for Linux.
1. “Linux is Open Source”
Most companies will probably never look at the source code (and they know it). If they need something fixed they must either pay someone to do it, or wait untill someone does it for free.
Most home users don’t have the technical knowledge, or the time for programming, and they certainly won’t pay someone to do it.
2. “Windows crashes all the time”
For someone that has used other Windows versions than Win9x (or Win3x for that matter), this just seems stupid. Whenever I read such a comment I just skip the rest of the article/comment.
3. “Microsoft/Gates is evil”
Unless I see a picture of Gates with the number of the beast on his body, I won’t listen to such arguments. Microsoft is no different than other large companies.
If the same attention had been focused on companies that actually does something worth boycotting (like using child labour, animal cruelty, pollution), the world would be a better place.
When a person talks about the evil monopoly of Microsoft, while (s)he wears a shirt made by a 10 year old, or a fur coat, you should question his/her moral.
4. “Linux is cheap”
Microsoft has enough money to lower the price when they see a large number of users switching. Windows will have an advantage for home users because they like to play games, and because most of their neighbours/friends/family has Windows installed. Companies worry about performance and support. Linux might have an impact in the traditional office market, and in the internet industry but I guess Microsoft will have enough sales to live on.
Both Sun and Microsoft have seen the threat from Open Source OS. They are now responding by adding more features, more software, and better integration. Both Sun and Microsoft now have an LDAP directory, Kerberos Authentication, encryption technology built into their domain structure. In addition they both have added a great GUI tool to manage these domains. In addition, they have started bundling application servers/frameworks into their OS. Sun has bundled J2EE/Java and Microsoft has bundled .NET. So while it is true that companies will have to pay more for Solaris and Windows, they definately do have value added features that a lot of enterprises would look forward towards. Can Linux currently do the same, yes and no. If someone goes through all the trouble of making an LDAP Server, and a Kerberos Server, he will still need to worry about upgrading all these in the future and he will need to pray that software coming out somehow would be compatible with his domain structure (highly unlikely since it is not standard based.)
“Here are some comments for common arguments for Linux.”‘
Here we go again folks.
“1. “Linux is Open Source”
Most companies will probably never look at the source code (and they know it). If they need something fixed they must either pay someone to do it, or wait untill someone does it for free.
Most home users don’t have the technical knowledge, or the time for programming, and they certainly won’t pay someone to do it.”
There’s a difference between an opportunity offered, and not taken vs an opportunity never offered. Never underestimate the power of the former. As for your “waiting for someone else to fix it” argument. How is that any different than what the proprietary companies give us?
“2. “Windows crashes all the time”
For someone that has used other Windows versions than Win9x (or Win3x for that matter), this just seems stupid. Whenever I read such a comment I just skip the rest of the article/comment.”
For those OSs that are based on the NT kernel yes. However for a billion dollar company the public shouldn’t have had to put up with those issues for as long as it happened. Now should they?
“3. “Microsoft/Gates is evil”
Unless I see a picture of Gates with the number of the beast on his body, I won’t listen to such arguments. Microsoft is no different than other large companies.”
I don’t know if the “we’re doing what everyone else is doing” is really a good defense. But it does seme to be a popular one.
“If the same attention had been focused on companies that actually does something worth boycotting (like using child labour, animal cruelty, pollution), the world would be a better place.”
The world is a better place not just in curbing the worst abuse, but in setting higher goals and meeting them. One shouldn’t have to wallow with pigs in order to notice if one is dirty.
“When a person talks about the evil monopoly of Microsoft, while (s)he wears a shirt made by a 10 year old, or a fur coat, you should question his/her moral.”
True, however one should also consider suspect those who deliberately forget the lessons of history.
“4. “Linux is cheap”
Microsoft has enough money to lower the price when they see a large number of users switching. Windows will have an advantage for home users because they like to play games, and because most of their neighbours/friends/family has Windows installed. Companies worry about performance and support. Linux might have an impact in the traditional office market, and in the internet industry but I guess Microsoft will have enough sales to live on.”
Free for any length of time is a hard price point for even a billion dollar company to match. I also see the twins (games, everyone else is doing it). Remember the only certainty in the universe is change. Second as already mentioned elsewere, support is there, you simply have to put down your Forbes magazine and look. As for the last line. For those with any kind of memory, I remember when even a concession like server-side usage “internet industry”, and office market wouldn’t have passed anyone’s lips. Now look were we are. Does anyone honestly expect everything to just stand still?
I’m just saying that unless Microsoft makes some serious mistakes, or get a really bad public image, they will continue to be a major player in the years to come.
A superior technology might stand a chance, but Microsoft will probably not stand still and watch. Technologies that are mearly “equivalent” might win some users, but MS will still make profits.
OpenOffice will probably get users in the office market, but if MS drops the price of Office, the main “selling-point” of OpenOffice will be invaluide. Microsoft has a huge profit margin of Office and Windows, and can sell them at a low price, and still not go bankrupt.
Windows-division: 80.7% profit margin (+2% since 2001). They were left with $1.97 billion in cash
Office-division: They had a similar profit margin and were left with $1.88 billion in cash
Even in the server-division, where they have a lot more competition, they still managed to get a surplus of $498 million.
LOL good point! :/
ever notice how their leaders arent the ones going off to die but gladly send their followers on those missions. just an observation.
and to the linux zealot. linux is just a tool to get something done nothing more. same with any OS.
<sarcasm> next thing you know we will have people blowing themselves up to make others use linux ugggg. </sarcasm>
The reason IT people like Microsoft is that it helps them feel like they are part of the ruling hegemony — that they, too, can be an oppressor.
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” — Ayn Rand
Microsoft, as a dual monopoly, rules by brute force.
Free and open software offers people the opportunity to move to a world where they do not have to be a slave to Microsoft’s iron rule.
Unfortunately, finding a country with a sane, modest, frugal, and moral government remains much more difficult.
“ever notice how their leaders arent the ones going off to die but gladly send their followers on those missions. just an observation. ”
That applies to a lot of sides. Think about it.
“and to the linux zealot. linux is just a tool to get something done nothing more. same with any OS. ”
<observation>
And to the car zealot. A car is just a tool to get from point A to B, nothing more. Same with any car.
<observation>
<sarcasm> next thing you know we will have people blowing themselves up to make others use linux ugggg. </sarcasm>
<antisarcasm> next thing you know we will have people blowing themselves up to make others use Windows ugggg. <antisarcasm>
Michael:although i agree with you. i think alot of the “power” that MS weilds is mostly in the mind of the users. if IT staffers evaluated tech on the terms that work for them then you will see less people using a hammer where they should have used a pulley. if you know what i mean
BR: about the cars i agree and your antisarcasm wouldnt surprise me either ^^.
Not sure why people are going easy on HP. My dealings with HP in the past couple of years shows a company that does’nt care, quibbles endlessly over the smallest warranty problems, and products that show the cost reduction to the customer.
One example, we have an 8500n printer here. The carosel got jammed and they quoted us lb1000 to come and fix it. The engineer advised that we need to change all the toner carts which we did, and then when testing the printer the issue remained the same.
The engineer did a reset by panel and refused to disclose what this reset actually was. For HP that is a nice lb1000 profit from a carosel jam and a refusal to advice the customer of the actions required to fix. (Fine, its proprietry, but HP just lost any chance of future printer sales)
Bottom line, the days are GONE where you can be so mercenary, arrogant, and non caring to the customer.
The previous time with HP was over a hard disk that would not format, made horrible noises. They forced us to argue over the phone for days, even to the point where we put the phone next to the harddisk to get across the point that the drive was fubarred. Eventually they sent a replacemment disk. Never ever buy a HP Brio business machine.
Three years ago, we had HP CD writers, we had one that got a fault, and HP came same day business swap out. Now that is the HP I used to know and love. Right now, HP royally suck beyond words. I don’t think they will be anything like as big as the two previous companies were (HP and Compaq) and right now they are living of the fat of the printer land.
AdmV
In the last 15 year that I have been in computing, it seams that every year some tech journo puts his head up and says that “Sun is doomed because of XYZ”. It has not happen yet and I don’t see it happening in the near future either for two reasons.
a) Scott is really focused on the bottom line, he once said that you could by his office chair, as far as he is concered everything in Sun is for sale at the right price.
b) And sun investes in technology, the disruptive stuff that the artical lawds so highly. People have such short memory I remeber that Sun was doom because they dropped M68k for RISCs and then RISC because the next big thing. They got into RISC because the price performance of the M68k did not make sence. Look at the Sun and the Xeon, they have seen that the SPARC can’t compete and they have started to ship it, if and when the I2 can really complete with the UltraSparc I would lay money that Sun will sell hardware with it. Sun I think dropped it originally because they could see that it was going to be 2 to 3 years down the line before it was commersially viable and they let HP and Intel pay for the ‘bleading edge’ costs. That is very smart in my books, they had a chip that was going to be better for at least the near term and they have the tech resources to design new boxes later if needed, why waste the time and effort gaining market share and disrubting your customers with another new archetecture. There is no inherent business benifit in technology for technology’s sake, it is what you can do with it.
Harvard Business School? You have to be kidding me, considering every student passes their classes at Harvard, something fishy is going on. Even my good buddy William Gates left there due to the stupidity of that school. To sum it up, what a load of bull. Harvard Business School don’t know anything else besides how to run their own business (Harvard). Oracle will be here WAY into the future as well as Sun and HP. R&D alone in these companies will keep them afloat even if no one would buy their products. Especially HP, next to IBM they have the best scientists out there.