<Addi, where are you?>
I think you can find Addi in the LSI thread, at least that was the last place I saw him. Apparently, he's not doing too well with LSI.
But to tell you the truth, it sure was a LOOOOONG wait for SUNW to break out to this level. I have been waiting for 15 months for SUNW to get to 60, and hopefully, that won't be too far ahead.
Wall Street begins to "recognize" SUNW? I don't really think so. Wall Street recognizes companies that turn out good results year after year. SUNW had a great quarter in turns of revenue growth and order growth, that's why it's getting rewarded now. Java, Solaris 7, Jini... sure sound nice, but look at SGI 3 years ago, they got a lot of good products then, and where are they now? SUNW is just taking real advantage of Window NT (I should say Windows 2000 now) delay. It will be interesting to see what will happen in late 1999 when Windows 2000 come out. How much of the current UNIX market will Windows 2000 eat into.
I think the decision for adding a smart card to run MSFT's apps on SPARC will pay off big in the long run. It will keep some customers who are currently using SUNW box but might switch to WINTEL when Windows 2000 come out from doing so. After all, adding a smart card should be much cheaper than buying a WINTEL box. But I am wondering how would the windows apps performance running on the smart card comparing to the performance of these apps running on WINTEL. As I see it, the big advantage of Windows over Solaris is in the amount of apps available. If any windows apps can be run on a SPARC, then Windows have no advantage anymore.
I think SUNW is going in the right direction. But I would like to see them doing more cooperation with MSFT, after all, MSFT is here to stay no matter what. The goal for SUNW is not to have more INTEL boxes running Solaris, the goal is to convince more NEW customers to buy SPARCs which can run both Solaris and Windows apps on them. |
