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

To: Michael F. Donadio who wrote (35950)	10/1/2000 12:49:53 AM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

I tend to mostly agree with Eric. No one who has been to enough conferences and announcements is surprised when demos don't work. Unlike rudedog, I've personally been at several Microsoft developer and hardware conferences where half the demos crashed, blue screens abounded, and the whole thing looked like a circus with Bill G as ringmaster. I've also seen my share of failed Sun demos. If you go to enough demos, you realize that they just don't work a lot of the time. People are trying to set things up on stages and in booths minutes or hours before the demo under a lot of time pressure. Little variables that aren't supposed to matter end up mattering. It's vulnerable to every kind of Murphy's Law mishap. These things happen. However, sometimes the head guy puts his foot down and says: show me your plan to make this demo bulletproof, and I don't want to hear any reasons why you can't. I think Microsoft got into that mode after enough disasters. It doesn't look like Sun has. Because demos are demos, this too shall pass. What really matters is not the demo but rather the timely launch of a stable, well-performing product that has customers ready to buy. But this critical grid computing idea is something that's hard for laymen and probably even a lot of computer press to really understand. It's a differentiator for Sun's vision. It has to be demonstrated with utter simplicity, punch and clarity, not with a crashy clown show and improvised slides illustrating a graduate-level computer science lecture. Everybody knows what the Ultra III is, but this grid computing concept is quite another story. It's the case where Zander should have said, "If this isn't going over perfectly, then let's wait. Now convince me it's going to go over perfectly, not just in your lab, but there onstage." I am disappointed with this screwup. It's not like Sun. --QS

To: Michael F. Donadio who wrote (35950)	10/1/2000 4:47:10 PM
From: E_K_S	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

Hi Michael : Perhaps SUNW can design a "Demo" marketing program that incorporates (and builds upon) many of the unique strengths in SUNW's Net Centric enterprise vision. Here are a few of my suggestions: 1) Build a separate Web site that is used by SUNW marketing that demonstrates the distributed processing capabilities of the UltraIII. This would be used at every trade show and event that SUNW attends. o incorporate a video Web cam that takes pictures of the attendees at the booth. o provide a link that allows anybody to access the demo and display (and update in real time) the benchmarks that are being tested. o The demo should always be on and show just how dependable the Solaris OS is compared to other systems (ie NT, HWP) being tested. o Build the Demo system that can be expanded so new features can be added when new products or services are announced. o Create media marketing announcements that promote the use of the Demo Web site. o Get the media involved with interactive feedback, posting of independent articles, real customer solutions, new third party developments, university and government applications (like sharing of computing resources among local gov. agencies). There is quite a bit SUNW could do in developing an on-going "real time" demo WEB site. Users get instant feedback. Sunw's engineers would not have to keep redesigning the site but rather focus on building a site that shows exactly what SUNW's five year vision is and adding the new features as they are announced. Such a system is similar to what the car companies now do when they design and build their automobiles of the future. Sunw has the opportunity to set the standard simply because they have the products and services now that could support such a new marketing tool. EKS