[geeks] Opinions on "A personal view of Sun Microsystems"?

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 nate at portents.com wrote:

> http://xrl.us/ks35

Sun's biggest failures have always seemed to me to share the common
thread of Sun not realizing what it possesses.

   1) Sun has lukewarm CPU performance but terrific I/O, so, of course,
      Sun bets the farm on a CPU-heavy technology (Java) for deployment
      in traditionally I/O-heavy problems (web serving, data warehousing,
      transaction processing, software installation/distribution), so
      everyone loses.

   2) Sun had tremendous market-share that they scared off the corporate
      backing for that market-share through numerous product changes
      (quick quiz: without checking their web site, what's the name of
      their compiler suite this week?), numerous changes in direction
      (It's all about Java!  Oh, wait, Throughput Computing!  Erm, ah,
      Network Computing 0301!  Ummm, CoolThreads!), the seeming
      rapid-fire release of Solaris[0], and confusing branding[1].

   3) Sun had most of what was left of the technical computing business,
      but, in the interests of cutting costs, released utter dogs like
      the Ultra 10, the Blade 100 and 150, and the Blade 1500.  They
      don't have traditional Sun build quality, all but the 1500 is a
      terrible performer (though the GNOME desktop in Solaris 10 can
      still make a 1500 feel no faster than an SS2 did running OpenLook).
      This, in particular, forced a lot of people to jump to IBM (at
      approximately the same price point) or Dell (at a lower price
      point).

   4) Sun has lots and lots of loyal SPARC customers which it
      marginalizes through its aggressive marketing campaign for its PCs.
      UltraSPARC-IV gets a ho-hum but Sun's PCs get airplanes pulling
      banners across the Austin skies?  Until Sun announced the Ultra 45,
      I'd gotten the impression they were through with small SPARC
      systems all-together.

   5) Sun has lots and lots of loyal SPARC customers which it
      marginalizes through feature disparity in Solaris 10.  I don't
      recall whether it was here or at $otherPlace that I detailed the
      "fun" I had setting up a dual-head Ultra 60 with Solaris 10.  I
      don't think I ever got the second head to come alive usefully, but
      I do think I finally convinced it (through hacking of ksh scripts,
      rather than the "approved" channels, whatever they are) that my
      tube could do 1600x1200.  fbconfig didn't DWIM in ways I no-longer
      recall, and the documentation on Sun's web site (for Solaris 10!!)
      was so up-to-date that it mentioned "new upcoming managability
      features for [that card] which would be available in Solaris 2.6
      (when it ships)."

   6) The build quality (probably the thing I praised them on the most;
      machines that almost never die and are easy to work on are just a
      joy)of their smaller systems has been on a consistent slide since
      the Ultra 1 and its fragile plastic drive trays.  Even their small
      servers are a joke.  Also, Sun's been playing the Apple game of
      disabling third-party memory[2] through firmware updates.  With all
      those hassles, and Sun pushing Solaris x86 like it's going to save
      the company, why not just buy PCs from a PC vendor?

To sum it all up: Stop yanking the customer's chain.  Stick with what
you do well.  A business can stay alive without "growing their core
competencies and expanding into new market segments to maintain
consistent profitability and defend shareholder ROI" or whatever they're
teaching at Suit University these days.


[0] You and I know that Solaris 7, 8, 9, and 10 are -really- Solaris
     2.7, 2.8, 2.9, and 2.10, but try convincing your executives of that.
     In that same period of time, Microsoft released Windows 2000 and
     2003 (two "major" jumps), IBM released AIX 4.3.3 through 5.3 (two
     "major" jumps), and AIX stayed at 6.5.
[1] What do the "Java Desktop", "Java Directory Server", and "Java
     System Messaging Server" have to do with Java?  Nothing!  After
     seeing Java in (in)action in the Sun Management Console and Sun
     WebStart Installer, are -you- going to want to slog through anything
     associated with Java for your -entire desktop- or LDAP naming
     infrastructure or email delivery system?
[2] If you're going to -use- industry-standard memory, how about we
     adhere to those standards and not check for Sun magic in the SPD
     ROM?
-- 
Jonathan Patschke   )  "Humans that lose the capacity to think become
Elgin, TX          (    creatures whose existence has no value."
USA                 )                      --Schwarzwald, _The_Big_O_