To: John F. Dowd who wrote (30315 ) 10/1/1999 3:24:00 PM From: taxman Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Sun Microsystems (SUNW) 91 3/16 - 1 13/16: Sun is bent on changing the way software is sold, and the way it is used. Today's article in the Wall Street Journal about Sun making Solaris source code available may be a critical turning point in the fight for the corporate IT department. This move isn't about putting the small Linux developer community out of business. The real software battlefield is the enterprise: large corporate installations. Dominated, still, by mainframe and minicomputer applications, with an attached network of desktop PCs, the transition to other, more modern platforms has always been slow. Windows NT is Microsoft's (MSFT) strategic operating system for capturing the heart of the enterprise, having secured the desktop, and full integration with one system was a key selling feature. But enterprises have resisted, by and large, dumping everything existing and switching to an all Microsoft solution. The main reason is that it is hard to switch, and NT hasn't provided enough allure to risk making the changeover. Does getting your hands on the source code of the operating system change that? That is the key question. To be honest, we aren't sure if large insurance companies, manufacturing companies, or shipping companies, etc., want to start tweaking operating systems for their key systems. If it can greatly improve performance, for example, by bringing I/O with mainframes from the application level to the platform level, maybe they do. Might well appeal to those enterprise making links between Web servers and legacy systems (that's everyone, by the way). But it is unclear if enterprises do want source code, which is why SUNW is down today. Red Hat (RHAT) is also down, on fears that this makes Linux less valuable, which it does, but Linux never had a chance of taking enterprise systems by storm. No, Sun is aiming at getting deeply embedded into corporate systems through web servers, and this tactical gamble doesn't cost much, in terms of lost revenue, and is unlikely to be matched by Microsoft. So, all we need to know now is whether corporate America really wants operating system source code. If you work in a corporate IT department, let me know if you do. - RVG - rvgreen@briefing.com
