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

To: A.L. Reagan who wrote (42731)	4/4/2001 8:22:56 PM
From: A.L. Reagan	Respond to of 64865

And a guy responding to the other guy: Poor facts ------------------------------------------------------------ The "NC" (Network Computer) trumpeted by Larry Elison of Oracle is a client machine not a server. Oracle have a kinda "OS-free" version of Oracle called "Oracle Appliance Server" I think. It's based on a cut-down version of Solaris. Sun have made 4 aquisitions of storage companies in the last 1-2 years. They just completed the one of HighGround yesterday. (I remember some recent comments from Vertias people being not too happy with Sun competing with them in general. However, Sun, Vertias and Oracle get on pretty well in general and work together - eg VOS initiative) Not having a great big fixed ("limited") box for storage is precisely the point of the T3. If you want a "sexy big box" that is supposed to be easy to sell, you can sell a whole rack of them... and Sun do: sun.com Sun also have more "integrated" solutions - basically a E450/E4500 in a bigger box with a load of discs for customers that want it: sun.com I don't think you have to worry about Sun cutting back on R&D either: zdii.com Sun's foundry partner TI is not cutting back either - if anything they're accelerating R&D... I think you overestimate the size of IBM and HPs server business relative to Sun. From the US Sun got more revenue in 2000 from servers than IBM did, across IBM's entire product line, PC servers, Unix servers and mainframe. Sun still have a ways to go before overtaking IBM worldwide to become the world's largest server company, though if Sun continue to gain market share fast, then they could overtake IBM in 1-2 years. Sun's a lot more powerful company in the marketplace than you seem to think. I'm away that for total revenue, HP and IBM are 50% and 300% bigger respectively, but how much does non server side help them compete with Sun on the server side? How much will diversification help them if the entire computer market is hit? Sun have been through recessions before of course... yes despite that they've never had a single year where they lost money, even the first, and they've been around for nearly 20 years now. Also, I think you underestimate Sun's performance in things that matter to them, like databases. Compare these to TPC-C submissions: tpc.org tpc.org the 16 CPU Compaq GS160 (731MHz) beats the 14 CPU Sun E4500 (464MHz) by only 7%, despite having 13% more CPUs and a lot more MHz and even more performance according to SPECint2000. Compare the price/performance and the Sun box easily wins. That's Sun's old generation competiting very well with Compaq's latest generation. One thing to note - what is the major factor industry analysists give for Sun's major success in winning market share from the competition? Simple product line. Sun don't spend half their competing with themselves, unlike IBM and HP (and Compaq). Diversification (or not) is certainly a double edged sword though. Anyway for the moment, I think Sun are already doing most of the things you're saying they should, and are in a better position than you think, and that's with their previous product line, their next-gen stuff should help a lot. Hence "poor facts". ----------------------------------------------------------- Hey, if we don't get tech discussions here, they can always be imported! <g>

To: A.L. Reagan who wrote (42731)	4/4/2001 8:27:23 PM
From: Prognosticator	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Sun has been going out of business, according to some, ever since I first bought it in 1996. They will be around in 30 years. I can't say the same for the other companies in the comparison :) In 30 years time I know that programmers will still be using Java. The same cannot be said of any other language/runtime technology. That gives Sun incredible competitive advantage, especially since they wrestled control back from the satanic redmond forces. Finally, I'm glad he thinks Sun is small. That leaves plenty of room for growth at the expense of others. P.