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

To: JC Jaros who wrote (31932)	5/15/2000 1:12:00 AM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

As far as I can remember back in the past 10 years, SUN has never leapfrogged anybody in pure processor performance (except Intel). In the RISC race, in terms of raw SPEC-this and SPEC-that, it's always been a matter of how far they've been behind, because SPARC is simply the slowest of each generation of commercial RISC processors. But in terms of overall system performance, i.e., TPmC's and other transaction measurements, Sun has been in the game of leapfrog, now ahead, now behind. Plus, their emphasis has been supplementing their transaction performance with increasing reliability, scalability, service, storage, and all the other things that you have to surround raw benchmark numbers with in order to sell to enterprises. They have executed this big-picture strategy better than anyone else, and that's why the Fortune 500 CEO's continue to call them first and why they are the fastest-growing big-iron company. The thing is, there's only so far you can fall behind in any one component of the big picture before you start to lose share. Whether or not the SPARC is doggy compared to the latest Alpha, you simply couldn't build an E10000 out of Celeron 366's, or Pentium 800's for that matter. Even though Sun's overall execution has been good, you can't rest on your laurels because competitors exist and, no matter how inept, will catch up if you give them enough time. The odd PR release about replacing the root DNS server doesn't matter, notwithstanding the mewlings and pukings of callow youth. But it does matter if releases like that turn from a trickle into a flood. That hasn't happened yet and won't for a while. But: Sun has to stop giving them time. They need new products out the door. I don't see how that's controversial. --QS