Harry:
> Microsoft wins. I think this deal with Apple not only means that
> Microsoft can now call the shots there..but it also portends bad
> news for Sun.
What you call bad news for Sun, I think, IMHO of course, great news for Sun Microsystems! It is as if Microsoft like a chicken whose head is bleeding running around trying to do anything not to be taken out and eaten as Barbecue chicken!
Have you seen the movie Air Force One? There is a statement made by Harrison Ford that is sort of a cliche but nevertheless very interesting. At the beginning he says: the true peace is not the absence of conflict but rather the presence of justice... While Microsoft after years of conflict with Apple is now trying to end to that conflict by making peace with it, the one ingredient that is missing is the justice! And therefore there can never be a peace thus not benefiting Apple as a company. Microsoft might win a little because its browser and therefore its version of Java VM will become the default on the MAC. But that will simply not cause for its Java VM to become the standard. Microsoft practically killed Apple, and Apple allowed its execution because of its illogical arrogance and ego (so in a way it deserved it)! But now Microsoft needs Apple badly to fight Sun on the Java open standards. The computing world is no longer just the desktop market. The desktop market is now only a fraction of the whole computing model. Therefore it can not dictate as what the standard should be for the rest of the computing world.
I suppose the hype around Apple will go on for some time, but in the final analysis it will be the underlying earnings report and revenue generation that matters. Starting this quarter (but perhaps most likely the next quarter) Microsoft's earnings and revenue growth will be shrinking big time (as a software application and tool technology provider company), and I doubt it very much that Apple will have any drastic improvement in its buttom line numbers. In a bull market like we are having fundamentals do not seem to mean anymore, all it matters is some hot empty hype for quick players to make some money followed by and leaving behind the naive average small investor with a huge loss!
As for Sun, regardless of what Microsoft or Apple do, will continue to grow and benefit from this very strange alliance between the 2 company. Pushing Java by both Apple and Microsoft mean nothing but a stronger convincing argument for having a non-proprietory technology. And it is truly amazing that the ones pushing for having this non proprietory technology are the ones that up to this point have tried to each push their own closed proprietory technology! Sun may not have a direct representative in this strange alliance but it has Oracle's Larry Ellison who is watching over the 2 like a hawk so they dont do anything bad causing Sun to be irritated! And note that I used the word irritation, because that would be all regardless of how Microsoft and Apple try to deviate from Sun's version of Java. For one thing whatever they come up with must be a superset of Sun's Java technology, and secondly, and this is the most important part which is still a new concept to most people, the computing world is no longer the desktop market; Desktop is now a fraction of the computing world. And Sun is in complete control of this new computing world. And the beauty is that it did not take it over by force or dictatorship, but rather by absolute democracy and the majority vote of the industry!
Regards,
Addi Jamshidi |
