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

To: rudedog who wrote (35502)	9/19/2000 4:09:17 PM
From: Michael F. Donadio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

Rudedog, You may be right, but this question was specifically asked to Ed. This is what he said. He also said they very rarely buy, but COBALT was too perfect a fit to pass up. You may think that SUNW should have done it on their own. He thought not, though he said they of course could have. Listen yourself. Maybe you should apply for his job. I trust their judgement and am glad they have finally entered the low end with high end margins. Michael

To: rudedog who wrote (35502)	9/19/2000 4:10:26 PM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Totally disagree, dog. Sun executes slowly. Like all big companies it's a molasses-like swamp rife with politics and fiefdoms. The way to get something like this to hit the ground running is to buy something that is on the ground running, and keep it away from the bureaucracy and the turf-god wannabees. I don't see why an infusion of engineering goodies from Sun's main engineering org couldn't boost this product line up with the rest of Sun's in a short timeframe. This is an appliance: do its buyers care if it runs Linux or Solaris x86? Is this a way to build a cheap, powerful sledgehammer Solaris box without stirring the pot in the highly political SPARC-iarchy, and get it done in some reasonable amount of time (hell, they could even build AMD Thunderbird boxes and put out a nasty product). Having engineering pieces laying around that could in theory be recombined to duplicate a competitor's product or a product in a new space means NOTHING unless the political "buy-in" from existing fiefdoms can create and sustain the momentum to make a hurry-up new project happen in finite time, especially when ROI and margins are questionable and pirhanas are snapping at all available internal personnel and money resources. Usually, that political buy-in is the hardest part of the project, not the engineering. Engineering is always spoken of as first in importance in situations like this, but is very often last in fact. I'm surprised at *you, because I know you've been to all these places and seen this happen. This is the most intelligent way for Sun to get into that "Sun's stuff is too expensive" server space. It represents a gamble...but do you want no-risk management? A gamble, yes, but not a dumb gamble and possibly a brilliant gamble. Stand by my former statement. But that doesn't mean I don't envy your Lotus<g>. --QS