From Barron's
Michael Dell's view on SUNW
"It's a pretty dumb, stereotypical view," maintains Michael Dell, "that comes from the guys at Sun Microsystems and places like that, who are basically trying to disrupt the tremendous market momentum that exists around the PC industry, which they rightly see as a threat to their franchise. The first reason they are wrong is that the market has already told them they are wrong, which is the best litmus test of all. Sure, there are certain forms of 'server-based' computing, but there's only a tiny percentage of the market going that way."
Dell is rather cutting when asked whether Sun Microsystems' programming language, Java, will evolve into a full-fledged operating system. "If they want to go that way, they have an awful lot of work to do first. In any case, any new operating system has to go up against Microsoft and, on any short-term basis, it's pretty hard to take out their position. On a longer-term basis, things are a bit more open.
"Still, when all is said and done, I don't think Microsoft is a good company; I think it's a great company, quite literally one of the best companies ever. If I were a gambling man ... I'd put my bet on Microsoft winning, probably with Windows NT. In this instance, that's where I think the future lies." And he continues: "There will be some rich applications, which are better stored on a server, but that's it. Thin boxes just aren't selling. And what is very interesting about the Internet is that, as people get faster and faster connections, they want faster, more powerful PCs, not slower ones. And that's, to coin a phrase, the future, whether you like it or not." |
