Reg,
IBM was a one stop shop in the 80's as well. It obviously
takes more than being a one stop shop.
Nothing obvious about it. I see SUNW as IBM was in the 60's:
poised to cash in on a developing trend that will revolutionize
information processing.
With the commodization of hardware, it will be worth shopping
around.
Hardware-as-a-commodity works to SUNW's benefit as much as anyone
else. They can take advantage of manufacturing efficiencies as
much as the next guy. Margins remain fairly constant as prices
decrease. We've seen that steady rate over the last few years.
Sun is still just a hardware company with some software
extensions
I don't see it that way and the stock market agrees with me, not
you. Their P/E is now up around that of M$FT and above those
of your typical hardware company. Clearly SUNW has more going
for it than DELL or CPQ and the market is reflecting it.
yet no profit from Java
If you have SUNW's accounting statements that break out Java
revenues and costs, I'd like to see them. In addition to
licensing fees, Java gives SUNW the kind of PR that most
companies would kill to have. If you were into sales, you
would realize that that fact alone is enough to drive up
revenues.
Assuming such, and Sun offers the solution for 1 million dollars, while Dell offers the solution on the same hardware platform (Merced) with a choice of two OSs (Win 2000 or Linux), at about $400,000,
Poor assumption. First, there is no Merced and no one knows when
there will be a Merced and what its cost will be. Second, if and
when there IS a Merced, Solaris will be the first and primary
O/S offered for it. Therefore (third), even IF DELL decides to
resell Merced, if and when it is released, they will almost
certainly be offering it with Solaris, especially since they
currently resell Solaris. Fourth, whoever tries to sell the chassis
containing Merced will have to contend with SUNW's existing
dominance in the large-scale enterprise/e-commerce market. Time
is running out for that to happen.
Then assume that if you go with the Win 2000 package, you
get the entire slew of applications along with the hardware/OS
(DB, application server, marketing support, terminal server support
for Office 2000 and back office application ASPs, etc.)
Another bad assumption. If you're an ISP or e-commerce company,
you won't choose Windows 2000 in the first place. SUNW has
all the sales & support services needed AND they also are
in the application server & business as well. SUNW has the
additional advantage of having done this for many years. Who
else besides IBM & HP can make that claim???
Dell can offer you the latest and greatest for less than Sun's actual cost
They don't now. What makes you think they will in the future??
which is why NT is gaining share so quickly
Gaining share of what, the word processor market??? NT isn't
gaining share of any market related to ISP & e-commerce servers.
it (NT) offers a lot of bang for the buck backed by a company
that is known to deliver
Get serious, Reg. Don't make me laugh.
So you don't think Dell, Intel or MSFT will take prospective
market share from Sun?
No, Reg, I don't. Not prospective and not actual. Not residual
and not existing marketshare, either.
BTW: as a point of clarification, what you call the workstation
market that Wintel has supposedly had so much success with used
to be called the desktop market (aka the office market). SUNW
had never participated in that market until last year. If anything,
SUNW has taken marketshare away from Wintel since then, when
the Ultra 1 & 5 were introduced. The workstation market is the
market for high-end graphical and scientific applications, SUNW's
old stomping-grounds. They still do just fine in the mid-to-
high-end market for workstations where there are more considerations
than just low entry-cost for cheap hardware and crummy software. |
