Jon:
I try to answer all your questions/points paragraph by paragraph, eventhough if you go back and really read my comments to you in the previous post I think most of these are just repeating myself.
You State:
> that is rediculous. Where are these Java applications that are
> deployed that are creating this demand? What companies have deployed
> them? What applications are they?
It is always amazing how when people do not understand something they call that as ridiculous! And with all due respect to you, you do sound to be a very conservative engineer who has a hard time to accept the change and adopt the new technology. I am dealing with a couple of such engineers at work who have just started to accept and to understand the new trend and chane. Anyway, as for what and why has caused such demands in servers, Jon, you can pick up your phone and call any large corporation's MIS department that used to write its applications in a 4GL (whether the 4GL has been from Informix, or Oracle, or Sybase, or Progress, or hundreds of other 4GL vendors that cams to offer some sort of 4GL product - both runtime and development time - in the late 80's early 90's), and they will all tell you they are no longer planning to use such 4GL products and instead will be (and actually are) developing their applications in Java (using the developmet tools that the former 4GL vendors used to provide them). If you are looking for specific examples you can name a few large and small such organizations (anyone of them) and then call them up and ask them! But to give you a few names, how about these: Bank of America, AT&T, Lucent, Dayton Hudson Corporation, Nordstorm, Federal Express, UPS, etc.
As to answer your question what are these applications, the answer is almost in all cases: database applications (GUI and non GUI). Large corporations require scalability, and performance. The traditional client-server model (2 tier system) is no longer the optimum solution. The new computing model calls for client-server-server-server-... (multi tier systems) in which the buisness logic as well as the database backbone are all distributed among a cluster of servers. That is why you see all of a sudden a huge demand for servers. The new comouting model calls for a cluster of servers.
I fail to see what you are arguing about? On one hand you admit the demand for servers has increased (after all this is why you bought SUNW yesterday based on this assumption), and yet you question what has caused such increase in demand(?!) and argue over whether it is all fiction and future visualization of things to come, or these are the things that are taking place now!
You state:
> You are making the mistake of confusing dubious future
> projections with current demand. Java is an insignificant force in
> current server demand.
Well since you bought SUNW strictly on the basis that they have a strong server demand, allow me to ask you: why do you think all of a sudden such demand has increased?!! After all you could have bought SUNW about a year ago when it was at around $23-$24/shr and (if I recall correctly) arguing against it claiming that Sun has no chance of growing in a Wintel desktop centric environment, and I remember you stating the exact statements that these are future projections of things that can happen! Well, the future has arrived! And really it is not too difficult to visualize further in the future!
You state:
> Can you explain to me how "visualizing" the thin client results
> in current server sales? Alternately, can you tell me just who is
> using thin clients right now?
Well, let me ask you if you ever bothered reading that post I did in which Bill Gates makes some comments in regard to simplification of owning the information technology?! I have a feeling you may have not read it, again with all due respect to you and nothing personal, but this is a pattern of people who do think very conservatively and their mind is set not to accept anything new! Now let me answer to your question. The thin client is not just visualizing it, it is understanding it since it is today's computing model (eventhough sometimes it does not seem that way which is the beauty of it)! Lets take a very simple example: America On Line. If I recall the numbers correctly, AOL's customers and therefore its revenue has increased about 60% since about a year ago! Why? AOL has made it cheap to own part of the information technology. AOL is a service provider. The people it is providing the service with are clients who demand quick performance to use AOL's services. In order for this to take place AOL had to spend a lot of money on its infrastructure including increase in the number of servers and therefore the cluster of servers it had. The software that provides the services to AOL's customers are now cosidered to have a thin client architecture. In other words the logic that used to reside on one server is now distributed among many servers in a cluster of servers.
Another example is Bank of America where they are developing (actually have developed) multi tier (client-server-server-server-...) applications that provide better performance and more scalability for them. And because of this multi tier, thin client model the demand for servers has increased. Java is the only viable magic key to have a thin client model.
Now the Web TV, NCs, home appliances etc. are all perhaps at this time and as you would call it, categorized as visualizing the future. But remember companies plan ahead at least by 1 year, to build their infrastructures for their visualization of future!
you state:
> Again, you are confusing "visualizing" what might be with what is.
No, with all due respect, I believe you have a difficult time understanding the new computing model as is which has caused the huge demand in servers (and not mentioning what the visualization part can do to this demand)!
Best Regards,
Addi Jamshidi
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