I'm a buyer of unix workstations, which I take it is Sun's primary product.
My understanding is that workstations have not been Sun's primary source of revenue for the past several years. Most of the revenue backlog they're trying to clear up is for enterprise servers that can cost in the millions. These are high margin products and they are not in a very competitive space. No one really produces that kind of reliable scaleable symmetric multiprocessor as well as Sun. Compaq will try to compete, but they aren't close. As for IBM and HP, we don't need to address that this week. And all Dell has ever done is prove that man is a tool-using mammal.
In terms of a "primary product", Sun's strategy, which they are executing pretty well, is to become more and more a full-service one-stop network computing solution supplier for the enterprise. "Solution" includes server hardware, software including both applications and tools, storage hardware, and services.
The role of Sun's software component is becoming much more important even while it remains poorly understood by most investors, who say "How many cents a copy does Java contribute to revenue?", thereby asking the wrong question. Sun's intention is to create and disseminate (for free) all the software needed for the basic support of their (mostly) open (mostly) non-Microsoft-proprietary network computing vision, then to make money selling the entire range of hardware and services plus higher-margin enterprise software and tools. Java, Jini and friends are mostly enablers that make that possible. Sun has acquired many software technologies, but also invented many in the network computing space. Their competitors have invented basically none, except for Microsoft which has mostly re-invented things. Sun is definitely unique in that sense.
"The network is the computer" sounds like a corny slogan, but in fact it reflects Sun's strategy quite precisely. Sun has gone from a workstation vendor to a company that now elicits analyst remarks like "When you think of e-commerce and the internet, think of Sun." You can watch Zander's presentations on RealVideo. When he says that he's the first one CEO's of huge companies call when they get nervous about being behind the curve in the changing technology paradigm, I for one believe him. As a result, Sun's stock has quintupled in value over a relatively short time. Their competitors' haven't.
Sun's uniqueness is that they're the best-positioned computer company in this definitive emerging business, plus they have an unbroken record of solid (and now accelerating) growth in both revenue and earnings.
I personally don't see anything but uniqueness.
Regards,
--QwikSand
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