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

To: QwikSand who wrote (31176)	4/20/2000 11:37:00 PM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 64865

QS - I have been following both debate and real development on IA64 for a while now and I side with the Hopkins position. EPIC depends on a magic compiler to find and exploit parallel opportunities, and the compiler technology has been way short of the mark to say the least. Also memory architecture was flawed, and I/O design is not impressive. McKinley looks much better - more silicon devoted to decent execution on a sub-optimized instruction stream, and very different memory and I/O design. But the other possibility is that HP really does have some better compiler results which they have simply not shared with anyone. That might be good for HP but bad for Intel.

To: QwikSand who wrote (31176)	4/21/2000 1:16:00 PM
From: Lynn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

Dear QS and thread: I have some questions about the article itself and as an example of other articles we often see. First, for some comments and the information I am using to later ask my questions: 1. That was not a corporate press release by either IBM or NSOL. It is an article written by someone after NSOL's corporate press release at 2:07 p.m. yesterday. This corporate press release only shows up checking for news on IBM or NSOL here at SI. At Yahoo!, it only shows up for NSOL. At neither site does this news release show for SUNW: Network Solutions Chooses IBM for Heart of Internet RS/6000 S80 to Host Internet's Top Level Domain Name System biz.yahoo.com If you read the above article, you might ask yourself, too: Why did NSOL bother releasing this news item? 2. The article you shared [distributed by Reuters], released at 6:40 p.m. [4 hours, 33 minutes after corporate press release], only comes up looking for news at SI for SUNW, not for IBM--or even NSOL: siliconinvestor.com siliconinvestor.com siliconinvestor.com Over at Yahoo!, the article someone wrote after NSOL's news release is this: Marketing misfire By Ryan Tate April 21, 2000 Get-rich tip: Don't put all your dots in one basket. Sun (SUNW) is learning that one the hard way. After bragging for years that it is the "dot in dotcom," Sun suddenly wasn't Thursday. Network Solutions (NSOL), which maintains the master database of dotcom, dotnet and dotorg domain names, said it was replacing the four-processor Sun Enterpise 450 server at the top of its domain-name hierarchy -- the "dot" itself, really -- with an IBM (IBM) RS/6000 S80 server, which Network Solutions believed was more scalable. [snip remainder of article having nothing to do with SUNW/IBM/NSOL] upside.com Note that this article is only a hit for SUNW and NSOL (after detailed quotes): quote.yahoo.com Now for my questions: 1. In terms of NSOL's corporate news release: Why would NSOL issue a news release about replacing SUNW servers with ones from IBM? What is their motivation? In all seriousness, I can see no reason for NSOL--or any company-- to spend money issuing a news release about something as ultimately trivial to the company itself as the brand of their equipment. 2. Going with #1: Could IBM have cut a deal with NSOL such that the price IBM offered had, as part of the contract (even if unwritten), that NSOL would issue a corporate news release about the purchase? Let's face it, for IBM itself to issue a news release about their sale to NSOL would make IBM look desperate, and tacky. Having NSOL do it, IBM does not look as bad (at least to some) and IBM gets to have someone else kick SUNW in the _____. Being an academic with zero contact with people in corporate America [other than here in cyberspace], I really do not know if deals such as this can be or are made. The article you posted, however, QS, makes me smell a rat here: "Bruce Chovsnik, senior vice president and general manager of Network Solutions Registry... [said] 'Price was also part of the decision [to purchase IBM servers].'" It turns out, "IBM is pricing the S80s 50 percent cheaper than list.[!!!!]" 3.How many servers did NSOL actually purchase, or agree to purchase from IBM? It sounds like one from the article you shared, QS: "Sun (NASDAQ: SUNW) , the leading provider of the heavy-duty computers that run complex Web sites, still provides hundreds of servers on the Network Solutions network, but the IBM S80 server will be positioned at the top of Network Solution's directory server network. " siliconinvestor.com Being very leary of NSOL motivation and IBM's intentions, I wonder if part of the deal was that NSOL had to make this specific server an IBM one as part of the deal. Since an NSOL spokesman admitted that price was a consideration, maybe IBM threw in this one for free. In closing, if IBM is behind the big deal NSOL and, now writers, are making over this sale (hoping to knife SUNW), I am glad I am not an IBM shareholder because this screams out to me, "IBM is having problems." NSOL? Well, I won't even type what I think of those people. Okay, one thing: no backbone. Regards, Lynn

To: QwikSand who wrote (31176)	4/21/2000 5:40:00 PM
From: Alok Sinha	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 64865

The Network Solutions / IBM / SUN story ended as follows: "IBM shares closed down 1/2 at 104 and Sun closed down one at 87-3/4. Network Solutions shares also closed lower, down 10-5/16 at 128-3/16." Copyright 2000, Reuters News Service Looks like the decision to go with a loser (IBM) hurt Network Solutions much more than SUN or IBM. Just kidding Alok I am going to be buying Microsoft next week as they are probably the only technology bargain out there (and I refuse to accept that Gates and Co. don't have a hidden ace up their sleeve. The refusal to come to terms with the Justice Dept followed immediately by this rev miss and lower guidance for future has a fishy air to it. Also Rick Sherlund keeps it on his recommended list in spite of the miss. If I am catching a falling knife, I am pretty sure it is a blunt knife so it won't hurt as much. Hopefully the analysts can see the bright side for SUN in Microsoft's woes.