Dear QS and thread: I have some questions about the article itself and as an example of other articles we often see.
First, for some comments and the information I am using to later ask my questions:
1. That was not a corporate press release by either IBM or NSOL. It is an article written by someone after NSOL's corporate press release at 2:07 p.m. yesterday. This corporate press release only shows up checking for news on IBM or NSOL here at SI. At Yahoo!, it only shows up for NSOL. At neither site does this news release show for SUNW:
Network Solutions Chooses IBM for
Heart of Internet
RS/6000 S80 to Host Internet's Top Level
Domain Name System
biz.yahoo.com
If you read the above article, you might ask yourself, too: Why did NSOL bother releasing this news item?
2. The article you shared [distributed by Reuters], released at 6:40 p.m. [4 hours, 33 minutes after corporate press release], only comes up looking for news at SI for SUNW, *not* for IBM--or even NSOL:
siliconinvestor.com
siliconinvestor.com
siliconinvestor.com
Over at Yahoo!, the article someone wrote after NSOL's news release is this:
Marketing misfire
By Ryan Tate
April 21, 2000
Get-rich tip: Don't put all your dots in one
basket.
Sun (SUNW) is learning that one the hard
way. After bragging for years that it is the "dot
in dotcom," Sun suddenly wasn't Thursday.
Network Solutions (NSOL), which
maintains the master database of dotcom,
dotnet and dotorg domain names, said it was
replacing the four-processor Sun Enterpise
450 server at the top of its domain-name
hierarchy -- the "dot" itself, really -- with an
IBM (IBM) RS/6000 S80 server, which
Network Solutions believed was more
scalable.
[snip remainder of article having nothing to do with SUNW/IBM/NSOL]
upside.com
Note that this article is only a hit for SUNW and NSOL (after detailed quotes):
quote.yahoo.com
Now for my questions:
1. In terms of NSOL's corporate news release: Why would NSOL issue a news release about replacing SUNW servers with ones from IBM? What is their motivation? In all seriousness, I can see no reason for NSOL--or any company-- to spend money issuing a news release about something as ultimately trivial to the company itself as the *brand* of their equipment.
2. Going with #1: Could IBM have cut a deal with NSOL such that the price IBM offered had, as part of the contract (even if unwritten), that NSOL would issue a corporate news release about the purchase? Let's face it, for IBM itself to issue a news release about their sale to NSOL would make IBM look desperate, and tacky. Having NSOL do it, IBM does not look as bad (at least to some) and IBM gets to have someone else kick SUNW in the _____.
Being an academic with zero contact with people in corporate America [other than here in cyberspace], I really do not know if deals such as this can be or are made. The article you posted, however, QS, makes me smell a rat here:
"Bruce Chovsnik, senior vice president and general manager of Network Solutions Registry... [said] 'Price was also part of the decision [to purchase IBM servers].'"
It turns out, "IBM is pricing the S80s 50 percent cheaper than list.[!!!!]"
3.How many servers did NSOL actually purchase, or agree to purchase from IBM? It sounds like **one** from the article you shared, QS:
"Sun (NASDAQ: SUNW) , the leading provider of the heavy-duty computers that run complex
Web sites, still provides hundreds of servers on the Network Solutions network, but the IBM
S80 server will be positioned at the top of Network Solution's directory server network. "
siliconinvestor.com
Being very leary of NSOL motivation and IBM's intentions, I wonder if part of the deal was that NSOL *had* to make this specific server an IBM one as part of the deal. Since an NSOL spokesman admitted that price was a consideration, maybe IBM threw in this one for free.
In closing, if IBM is behind the big deal NSOL and, now writers, are making over this sale (hoping to knife SUNW), I am glad I am not an IBM shareholder because this screams out to me, "IBM is having problems." NSOL? Well, I won't even type what I think of those people. Okay, one thing: no backbone.
Regards,
Lynn |
