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

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (49000)	5/15/2002 2:12:24 PM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

Itanium may never come to fruition. SUNW is still king in the 64-bit computing environment. The whole concept of the PC as a commodity environment has been on the table since IBM decided to give it a go back in 1981. It was supposed to replace the glass house. Predictions of the demise of "big-iron" and the promise of "self-empowered workers" with monster desktops replacing them were on the lips of all PC-bigots as early as 1985. Cheryl: I agree with you about the Itanium--though by now I would replace the subjunctive 'may' with the indicative 'will'--but the truth about PC's vs. big-iron has remained somewhere in the middle. BOTH have been predicted to disappear...but neither has; on the contrary they seem to continue to grow along separate paths. But just as the extremist vision of monster PC's on every desktop replacing mainframes with some kind of super-peer-network turned out to be bogus, Sun spent a few frustrating years touting a vision at the other end of the spectrum. Remember the one where the PC disappears and is replaced by general-purpose stateless leaf nodes like the disastrous and unlamented Javastation? I admit it: I bought into that vision too. So far, it has proved to be a non-starter. In fact it seems to me that everybody has been wrong so far. I'm trying to figure out who was right. I can't think of anybody except the bears who predicted the violent popping of the bubble. --QS

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (49000)	5/15/2002 6:05:11 PM
From: CYBERKEN	Respond to of 64865

Interesting, but its gets even more bizarre. FORTRAN language was invented in the early days of computing on the theory that the modern, hyper-trained business executive would sit alone at his desk speaking plain English to his vast, powerful mainframe, and a virtual people-free set of plants, transportation networks, distribution points, etc., would deliver product right from him to his millions of customers (Whomever they were supposed to be-maybe other computers). Today, of course, few with any interest in the history of computing are willing to admit that such a scenario was ever seriously considered. Decades later, the WEB was supposed to cause a very similar world. These innovations-in the wake of WWII through the present-have, and will most definitely continue, to change our world in comprehensive ways. But we cannot know what is coming, nor whether it is a happier world or a living Hell. We just have to wait and see. SUNW is a well-managed company surviving in a difficult world and making decisions for an unknown future. I am here because McNealy has proven he can do that better than IBM, MSFT or INTC, and will likely continue to do so. Predictions of his demise are message board pranks...

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (49000)	5/15/2002 6:07:40 PM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 64865

cheryl are you talking about the ibm 8100's that where supposed to be distributed processing.

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (49000)	5/15/2002 8:11:03 PM
From: Nolan S. Toone	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

Itanium may never come to fruition. SUNW is still king in the 64-bit computing environment.. That is interesting. Who is M$ going to go to get hardware from to compete in a server market? :-> As for the rest of what you said, I am seeing even in homes the idea of client - server showing up. People are adding two, three and more systems and finding it's nice to network and share things. After a time they won't want to spend big bucks on three of the latest and greatest when they can get one and all share it. This will take longer because M$ owns most of them (the home users) but the pressure will build and M$ will do it or loose them.

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (49000)	5/15/2002 9:19:20 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

re: demise of 'big iron' Looking back over the past 20 years, there HAS been considerable change in the computing environment. We have come from an highly restricted and controlled 'glass house' environment, where IT strangled productivity, to a much more open and user-empowered environment. Today's PCs offer productivity gains that are light years ahead of the old VT100 terminals and associated server-bound 'software'. The computing power has shifted dramatically from almost purely centralized to amazingly distributed. Today, servers are relegated to slaves to this power distribution. End users now demand that their computing needs be de-centralized whenever technically and economically feasible. We have come light years from the 'glass house' IT mentality. The metaphor spoke of both centralization and the fragility of that outdated model. Although central servers will probably always be necessary, their role will be increasingly relegated to supporting coordination of distributed resources. Doesn't anyone else find it ironic that SUNW was born as a means of destroying the glass house mentality by providing powerful desktop UNIX machines to replace the IBM 'big iron'? Doesn't anyone else find it ironic that SUNW grew in the early days by killing a technically superior (Apollo) using marketing smoke-and-mirrors? Does anyone else find it ironic that SUNW is being squeezed into the increasingly smaller higher end market by the hot young guns with marketing savy at MSFT? If SUNW tries to present itself as a re-emergence of the old glass house, central-server-over-distributed-computing mentality, they will die a slow death. As a SUNW mid-term long, I hope that Scott is too smart for that. But, I believe that SUNW will, in the long term, fall into this trap and become a marginal player.