The so-called 'high-end' server business is the old mainframe market and it is bigger than ever & growing daily.
re: twister's comment, consider the source. This is more blather from the village idiot. Twister is suffering from early-onset dementia.
I've been down this road before qwik. This is an old argument. In the old days, PC's were in the "office" market. They're still in the "office" market but the PC spin-doctors decided to spruce up the imagery to enhance their market push. Now they call it the "server" market. It's still the "office" market.
In the 80's, we used to try selling IT mgmt. on the idea that "PC's were taking over" and would one day handle all their data processing requirements. Well, we were wrong.
There are so many reasons that have been detailed so many times as to why this is the case that I'm loathe to go into them yet again. I would say one of the bigger reasons is service and leave it at that.
I'll leave out my opinion of Linux for the time being to get to what I believe to be your main point: the mgmt shakeup.
I won't pretend to have an inside scoop on why there has been a shakeup, but I do think Sun has to re-think its general strategy. When Ed was promoted to president, the thinking was: software/services/internet/java etc. etc. He was the right man for the job, having worked wonders with Solaris.
At that time no-one could have predicted this bust we are now experiencing. But, the push into being a major player in the software arena caused Sun to underperform on their microelectronics. It's tough to both well, but a successful computer company must execute in software and in hardware.
My feeling is that it's time for a strategic re-ordering. Sometimes a company really has to stick to the knitting and return to what they do well. Something tells me that Sun has been getting feedback from the field that they need to upgrade their RISC processors to keep from getting buried by IBM. You have to admit, it's the only soft spot in their strategy.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Scott finds someone who is hardware-savvy to take Zander's place, or to reorg and make a committee with microelectronics front-and-center. McNealy understands hardware and he's a very good manager. Maybe he'll do it himself.
I don't see this as a "radical" shift. The market is theirs for the taking, as long as they can deliver the goods, which they have done in the past.
BTW: Linux is not ready for prime-time. Don't let the gui fool you. Like windows, it's what is under the hood that counts. |
