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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (20786)	10/6/1999 9:24:00 AM
From: JDN	Respond to of 64865

Dear Reginald: I assume you know what happens when you ASS U ME? jdn

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (20786)	10/6/1999 1:15:00 PM
From: Prognosticator	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 64865

Good counterpoints. Now this is what we need on this thread, rather than twisters random blatherings. If all goes smoothly with either solution (and that means 1 hour of Sun downtime, 1 day of Dell downtime in your assumptions), then sure, you'd be crazy to purchase a $1M system that would be satisfied by a $400K system. However, large systems scale in a nonlinear fashion, and who are you going to call when your server blue-screens. Microsoft systems will, and do, do that. Intel? Microsoft? Dell? Frys? Who. Or are you going to engage EDS to manage it for you, and who will they call. The point is, that there is no single entity with enough knowledge of the system from end-to-end to be able to track down random sporadic failures in unproven multi-processor systems. Intel don't have access to the Microsoft source code, and wouldn't know how to diagnose problems with it even if they did. Microsoft don't have engineers who could figure out hardware designs as complex as the latest Intel chips. And Dell don't have engineers who could do either. Compaq at least is trying: they acquired DEC in an attempt to build a systems business. But Compaq don't have the Microsoft source code or expertise, and their DEC purchase seems to have vaporized on them. Who produces end-to-end systems right now: only IBM and SUN. The only other potential candidates are server-hosting companies like Critical Path and Exodus, but I'm not sure even they will have enough expertise to keep systems up and running in the presence of the inevitable failures. Also, interestingly they seem to be Sun houses. Perhaps they know something? Note: this analysis does not mean that Solaris on X86 is a non starter. It would have to be in a system designed and built by Sun, and used internally by Sun, not just any-old-server-box with Solaris installed on it by an ambitious systems administrator. P.

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (20786)	10/6/1999 8:05:00 PM
From: cheryl williamson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

Reg, IBM was a one stop shop in the 80's as well. It obviously takes more than being a one stop shop. Nothing obvious about it. I see SUNW as IBM was in the 60's: poised to cash in on a developing trend that will revolutionize information processing. With the commodization of hardware, it will be worth shopping around. Hardware-as-a-commodity works to SUNW's benefit as much as anyone else. They can take advantage of manufacturing efficiencies as much as the next guy. Margins remain fairly constant as prices decrease. We've seen that steady rate over the last few years. Sun is still just a hardware company with some software extensions I don't see it that way and the stock market agrees with me, not you. Their P/E is now up around that of M$FT and above those of your typical hardware company. Clearly SUNW has more going for it than DELL or CPQ and the market is reflecting it. yet no profit from Java If you have SUNW's accounting statements that break out Java revenues and costs, I'd like to see them. In addition to licensing fees, Java gives SUNW the kind of PR that most companies would kill to have. If you were into sales, you would realize that that fact alone is enough to drive up revenues. Assuming such, and Sun offers the solution for 1 million dollars, while Dell offers the solution on the same hardware platform (Merced) with a choice of two OSs (Win 2000 or Linux), at about $400,000, Poor assumption. First, there is no Merced and no one knows when there will be a Merced and what its cost will be. Second, if and when there IS a Merced, Solaris will be the first and primary O/S offered for it. Therefore (third), even IF DELL decides to resell Merced, if and when it is released, they will almost certainly be offering it with Solaris, especially since they currently resell Solaris. Fourth, whoever tries to sell the chassis containing Merced will have to contend with SUNW's existing dominance in the large-scale enterprise/e-commerce market. Time is running out for that to happen. Then assume that if you go with the Win 2000 package, you get the entire slew of applications along with the hardware/OS (DB, application server, marketing support, terminal server support for Office 2000 and back office application ASPs, etc.) Another bad assumption. If you're an ISP or e-commerce company, you won't choose Windows 2000 in the first place. SUNW has all the sales & support services needed AND they also are in the application server & business as well. SUNW has the additional advantage of having done this for many years. Who else besides IBM & HP can make that claim??? Dell can offer you the latest and greatest for less than Sun's actual cost They don't now. What makes you think they will in the future?? which is why NT is gaining share so quickly Gaining share of what, the word processor market??? NT isn't gaining share of any market related to ISP & e-commerce servers. it (NT) offers a lot of bang for the buck backed by a company that is known to deliver Get serious, Reg. Don't make me laugh. So you don't think Dell, Intel or MSFT will take prospective market share from Sun? No, Reg, I don't. Not prospective and not actual. Not residual and not existing marketshare, either. BTW: as a point of clarification, what you call the workstation market that Wintel has supposedly had so much success with used to be called the desktop market (aka the office market). SUNW had never participated in that market until last year. If anything, SUNW has taken marketshare away from Wintel since then, when the Ultra 1 & 5 were introduced. The workstation market is the market for high-end graphical and scientific applications, SUNW's old stomping-grounds. They still do just fine in the mid-to- high-end market for workstations where there are more considerations than just low entry-cost for cheap hardware and crummy software.