H. Wai:
> What is your reaction to the article posted in 3787 about IBM
> edging Sun in Java at the enterprise level
In my opinion, this is simply a further endorsement on Sun's computing model (and nothing more) where IBM has been, like many others that are acting either as Sun's partners or compettitoros, working a little over a year to take advantage of the server centric, thin client architecture. You will be hearing more of such news from many other companies as we get closer to the December-March time frame at which time NCs, along with a huge number of thin client software applications and development frame work from major as well as many many startup companies are scheduled to take off.
I was very surprised to see this piece of news was taken as a negative for Sun (if that was the reason for SUNW shares to decline today as some have implied)! In fact this should be viewed as an extremely positive factor for further continuing growth of Sun! There is one place in the news released that in my opinion is absolutely naive and in fact very idiotic! It states:
"This report identifies the best single-vendor end-to-end solution provider in the Java space. Several leading-edge vendors were originally evaluated, but only three were found capable of delivering end-to-end in the Java market: IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems."
The fact is there can not be the best single-vendor end-to-end solution provider in the Java space. The closest the industry can come up with would be Sun Microsystems but even Sun can not really be thought of as such. The new computing model which will (and to some extend has already) manifested into the introduction of the network society, calls for the non-vertical business model for corporate America. By Vertical model it is meant that corporations no longer can grow by simply doing everything themselves (e.g. Like how Apple was and still is, or how IBM was in the early 80's at the intorudction of PCs, or how Microsoft has been and still IS). The network society calls for cooporation rather than hard core compettition! You will have companies such as IBM, Sun, Oracle, Informix and Sybase (and even strangly enough eventually Microsoft) all cooporating with each other in order to grow. It sounds very odd for placing the names such as Oracle, Informix, Sybase, IBM, and Sun next to one another as cooporators rather than competitors. Indeed it is hard to imagine but that is how I think would be the ultimate manifestation of the network society!
In a network society everything is interdependent. After all it is a network where things are distributed. This is exactly the opposite of closed society (i.e. PC desktop computing model) where things are all in one place and mostly have their independence! The business models, ironically, also are the replication of the technology they represent! In the closed society (i.e. PCs) a company such as Microsoft, or Intel, or Sybase, or Apple could have provided all the neccessary technology and behave as one-solution-provider. In a network society this paradigm will no longer work no matter how hard corporations (even Sun) claim they are a one-solution-provider. Corporations (those participating in the computing industry and basically all involved in the high tech sector of the economy) need to all cooporate in the way they provide their technologies to the market. The shift in business model will result (actually has to some extend already) in the entire high sector being one giant corporation with this giant corporation having different divisions (i.e. companies we have come to know as individual contributors to the industry) with each one of such divisions cooporating in harmony!
Anyway, the point being IBM is only one of the many corporations that has accepted Sun's vision of network scociety model. The news you pointed out really is nothing new, and is just another endorsement for Sun (strangly a compettitor of IBM)!
As far as the investment point of view is concerned in my opinion any decline in the shares of SUNW under $47/shr is a blessing from sky! And I do believe because of naivity of the so called analysts and lack of understanding of many investors of what the network society and its underlying infrastructures are, SUNW shares may (and this is a big may/if) decline as companies from large corporations such as IBM, HP, Oracle, to many many startups will soon be flooding the market with their annoucement of somehow being the one-and-only-one-solution-provider of the Java mainfested computing model! I, for one, from the investment point of view will be adding to my SUNW shares from $46.5 and as each 6-7% drop that may (again a big may) take place! While the so called analysts and investors who would be giving away their SUNW shares think about what Sun's business model and potentials are, I would gladly take away as many shares as I possibly can from them with my regretfully very limited available cash!
Regards,
Addi Jamshidi |
