John: I don't see the same things as you do.
The SPARC has always been the dog of the RISC chips...its butt has been kicked around the block by PA-RISC, Alpha and PowerPC from day 1, and there have been times where you could draw reasonable comparisons between old versions of the SPARC and its contemporary 486. As has been pointed out on this thread many times by much more sophisticated computer architecture gurus than me, it's the system architecture including bus architecture, I/O, memory, RAS, scalability, etc. etc., plus the perception of a leading-edge and comprehensive solution, that have given Sun its advantage and promise to continue to do so in the future, maybe even more. It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean, you know?
HP and IBM can always try to buy business. But I'm betting they'll have to go some to buy enough business this quarter to hurt Sun's margins. I worry about things, but not that. My guess is that in April you'll have IBM and HWP apologizing for their further-decreased market share while SUNW is trying to manage analysts'expectations up slowly so things don't get out of control, as per usual.
Windows 2000 will make a splash the next couple of quarters and generate a ton of revenue for M$FT, there's no other side to that question. Whether it will affect Sun's business is another question. You say yes. I say, no way because it's just taking NT's place (upgrades and replacing NT as the bundled OS on new desktops). It is not a major server O/S. Whether it ever will be, we'll just have to see.
I reiterate: Sun's problems are execution challenges that are largely under their own control for at least the next two years. After that, nobody can predict anything.
As for the relationship between stock price and fundamentals, it's hard to disagree with those who say they're only tenuously related (or maybe unrelated) these days. The system is chaotic. Hype, fashion and herd mentality play a much larger role than ever. But, those factors have favored Sun up to now. Nobody has explained to me why they won't continue to favor Sun in the future.
Regards,
--QS |
