Will Sun Be the Next Apple? #1 Ranked Industry Newsletter Predicts
Hard Times For Sun Microsystems With Java Sowing the Seeds of Its
Parent's Doom
SAN MATEO, Calif., May 27 /PRNewswire/ -- coursey.com, the newsletter from industry analyst David Coursey, predicted
in today's cover story that hard times lie ahead for high-flying Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW).
In a lengthy cover story titled, ``As the Sun Sets'', coursey.com editor & publisher David Coursey points to ``the rich irony''
that at the very moment Sun Microsystems seems to have reached the zenith of its power, it has also become obvious that
Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) has nothing to fear from Sun.
``The question isn't whether Sun can beat Microsoft, but whether it's the next Apple or Novell,'' Coursey writes. ``Worse,
Sun's own child prodigy, Java is sowing the very seeds of its parent's doom.''
In his in-depth analysis of the company's strategic missteps, Coursey provides a list of the factors he believes support his
prediction that Sun is on the brink of serious troubles. Sun, he says, faces a rough path in its bid to rival Microsoft as a software
powerhouse and declining market share in its core hardware business, too. Coursey lays the blame for the impending problems
at Sun on two factors: corporate culture and mismanagement of Java, the popular software language that once looked like a
money machine for Sun Microsystems.
``Ownership of Java is much different from controlling it,'' Coursey points out. ``I'll go out on a limb and say that Microsoft
already has control of Java -- from a customer perspective at least -- and is likely to pull away from Sun and its cronies. The
reason for this is simple: Microsoft writes better and more useful code. Further, Sun is still a Unix-geek shop, meaning it can
never get as charged up about a market opportunity as Microsoft does every day before lunch...
``All this is especially sad because Sun is a truly great company. Really. Its people are smart and the company has really carved
out a niche and created some forward-thinking technology. But isn't that the same thing we said about Apple, DEC and
(maybe) Novell before each suffered a big fall?''
Coursey does offer an alternative to the doom-and-gloom he foresees for Sun: abandon the idea of a freely portable
server-side Java. ``This may be the only time you'll hear me promoting a closed standard as an architectural virtue for
customers,'' Coursey says. ``It is obvious that Java client applications need to be portable. But what is really lost if server
applications used vendor-specific extensions -- in hardware and software -- to improve performance or add features?
``Microsoft appears to be doing something like this in software. Why shouldn't Sun do the same to maintain the value of its
platform?'' It is very hard, Coursey noted, to turn a hardware company into a software company, and Sun must maintain its
position as a hardware vendor to avoid the financial free-fall Apple suffered when its hardware margins began shrinking.
The complete text of the six-page analysis of Sun and its challenges in the market appears in the current issue (Volume 1, issue
14) of the coursey.com newsletter. coursey.com was ranked as the most influential newsletter in the computer industry by
Marketing Computers Magazine (June 1, 1997), and David Coursey was named the most influential newsletter editor for the
second year in a row by the same publication.
For a three-issue free trial subscription beginning with the current issue, send e-mail to sarah@coursey.com, or visit the
company's web site (updated quarterly) at www.coursey.com.
SOURCE: coursey.com
Contact: Deb McAlister of Holland McAlister Public Relations, Inc., 800-878-1128, or deb@hmpr.com, for coursey.com; or David Coursey of
coursey.com, Inc., 415-577-2545, or david@coursey.com |
