P.
That sums it up pretty well. You'll notice in that list that
there is a preponderance of hardware companies in search of
a decent O/S (INTC,CPQ,DELL,1/2IBM). They're all playing
their own version of 'Waiting for Godot' while they lose
critical marketshare/mindshare to SUNW. At this point, it's
gonna be tough for ANYONE to catch Sun in the server market.
There could even be someone out there with a better MP than
SUNW, there could be someone else out there with superior
cacheing, someone else with better storage, someone else
with better authentication/security, someone else with
superior network drivers, etal... BUT, the real
point is this: SUNW has got it all together in a package.
It's one-stop-shopping for corporate and internet servers
from the highest to the lowest level requirements. That's
why I keep calling SUNW a solutions company. It means that
they are a breed apart from companies like INTC, DELL, & CPQ,
or anyone else, for that matter.
Assume you just brought your own ISP or e-commerce company
public. Everything is riding on your QOS. It HAS to be
7x24 with high availability and redundancy to the extent of
less than 1 hour downtime per year. And it MUST be a secure
operating system. You have to be able to take 1 million+
hits per day and you need high TPC/C benchmarks with reliable
database servers. You need the ability to expand the servers
and their capabilities with your expected business growth.
Where do you go for your hardware?? Where do you go for your software?? Dell?? Compaq?? HP?? Intel?? I don't think so.
You don't need a fast chip with awesome cacheing capabilities,
you don't need a whizzy gui with talking paper clips, you need
a SOLUTION. That means you have 2 choices: SUNW or IBM.
I don't see any real challenge to SUNW's growth in this market.
This is a market that has now reached just 5% saturation. When
it does reach saturation, SUNW will have a BIG chunk of it and
will continue to make money on maintenance and service.
As long as e-commerce grows, SUNW shareholders are in the
money. It's just that simple. |
