Johnd:
You overestimate my knowledge of what's going on inside Sun. I don't work there and don't know anything that isn't public.
1. The free Solaris 8 thing sounds like a multipurpose gambit.
All the boxmakers are trying to deal with the Linux phenomenon in one way or another. Those that were Microsoft captives without their own proprietary systems have no problem now that the DOJ has muzzled Anthony J. Soprano, Esq. and the rest of the Microsoft lawyers: Linux is fine with them, they're O/S-agnostic and will sell any O/S customers want. They will all make deals with Red Hat & co. The little ones, however, can just ignore it until it becomes uneconomic to do so.
The proprietary operating system box makers such as SUNW IBM and HP have two choices: embrace with PR or embrace with action. Ignoring Linux is not a choice for them. Sun has chosen to embrace with PR. So have HP & Compaq. IBM claims to be choosing to embrace with action. Whether they can succeed in doing so without looking like clowns remains to be seen, and my bet is, they can't. Part of the free Solaris 8 move is an evil twin of the PR embrace of Linux by Sun, a half-assed sop to the open source "community" who will most likely hold their nose and giggle as they have done to all the other Sun "open source" knock-offs. It makes me sigh.
But Sun has a much more important second part of the agenda: the rule that says "If software goes to free, then M$FT goes to sh*t." Sun cares about making money from a comprehensive model based around hardware, that includes software, service, storage, etc. That's why I giggle whenever twister or somebody else posts a link to a "Somebody using IBM's Java" article, as though this were a blow against Sun rather than the blow against Microsoft that it really is. The translation of that headline is "Microsoft Continues To Lose Deathgrip Control of Computing"; the Sun vs. IBM part has nothing to do with it. Sun gives Solaris away in order to further its vision, as McNealy and Zander repeat over and over: basic platform software should not cost money in and of itself, and in fact neither should anything that's very horizontal and people come to expect like word processing. To the extent this succeeds, Microsoft loses control. That's what it's really all about.
Will the revenue from Solaris hurt Sun? Maybe, but the idea is to make up for it from other sources, and SUNW is positioning themselves to do so with Forte/iPlanet/StarPoral etc. The basic software will be free with the machine. Modulo funny-money, it was anyway. The upgrades will now be charged for under the guise of some kind of service contract. Maybe you can download and install them yourself for free, but if you're big, do you really want to? And if you're big enough, in terms of owning Sun hardware, they don't care if you really want to; you'll be providing plenty of margin for them in other ways, just like you always have.
Solaris on Intel? Never made them any money anyway; might as well give it away to further stir the Wintel software pot...I doubt they spend much on maintaining it.
2. I have no idea about the state of the Ultra 3 project other than what's been announced. I'm very worried about whether they get machines out by the summer of this year. If they don't, IMHO, that's a problem. I hope they execute.
Regards,
--QS |
