[rescue] Re: [geeks] THIS. MAKES. ME. SICK.

[Dave McGuire]

On June 13, Jonathan Katz wrote:
> >   Yup...under pressure from suits, they dumped their real computers
> > and started making little tiny PeeCees.  This would have resulted in
> > bankruptcy (or nearly so) like it has in just about every other
> > company that has made that move, but Sun bought them just in time.
> 
> I thought the story came from the additional R&D costs needed in
> keeping the Linux/MIPS port afloat. Sure, there is a lot of cool

  Irrelevant...it was the stock Linux/MIPS codebase with in-house
drivers added for their particular hardware.  Now it's the stock
Linux/i386 codebase with in-house drivers added for their particular
hardware.

> When other costs (hardware) are put into consideration, the difference
> when buying MIPS in quantity vs. x86 in quantity is negligable. The
> other question would be are the MIPS MBs used in the original RAQs
> off-the-shelf or were they in-house/custom designed? It's a lot cheaper
> for a company to go w/ the off-the-shelf design.

  ...and if every computer manufacturer did that, all the computers in
the world would be made by one manufacturer, and we'd have no way
around the bugs/inefficiencies/design flaws of that one off-the-shelf
design.

> Sun has gobs of embedded processors, boards, and apps they need
> more customers for. It will be interesting to see which architecture
> Cobalt goes with in the long run.

  If they stick with PeeCee, they'll be Just Another PeeCee Vendor.
Which means they'll have to compete on price alone, which means
they'll lose their shirts.

  It's happened time and time again.  DEC tried it and nearly ran
themselves out of money.  DG tried it and now where are they?  Unisys,
Intergraph, AT&T, etc etc etc...they all tried to jump on the "hey
let's make PeeCees!" bandwagon but they all got the shit kicked out of
them by that huge, zero-cost PeeCee motherboard manufacturing plant
called Taiwan.

         -Dave McGuire