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To: ajtj99 who wrote (72665)	5/2/2003 7:56:28 PM
From: AllansAlias	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 209892

I think SUNW is dead meat long term. There is no need for them in the market over the long haul, IMO. This is incorrect from where I stand. Linux is poorly positioned for enterprise deals. Linux is a hard sell too a Fortune 1000 company. Who do you call for support? Where are the app's? What is the desktop? There are many issues that a CIO looks at that are not so obvious to a casual observer of technology. I love Linux, but I know that it remains a solution for the edges of a business. It is not ready for prime time as regards either the data centre or the desktop. (As a bit of an aside.... Linux clusters are doing well. Google "Linux custer" and check it out. Still, the bang you get out of an SMP box like a SUN 880, which is but a lower-end offering, is not to be dismissed. ) Then there are enterprise applications like SAP. Tell me, if you had to ramp-up SAP, how would you want to do it and support it? Sun boxes are ideally suited to this. Their support is another advantage. There is no credible Linux support. Presume that you are running something that must be online/available 24x7. This is not as rare a requirement as you might think. Perhaps your requirement is only that it be available 8x5. So, how do you guarantee support for that requirement? Support is like credit -- it's all about risk. Sun support is an actual product. I can order it like anything else. Linux support remains a gamble. Customers want support. Presently, where Linux is deployed, there is inevitably a champion in the organization. If the champions at the tekkie level want it, and an increasing number do, then you can do most support in house as the champions will go out of their way to see it succeed. BUT, the people writing the cheques are gonna want to have a fall-back. They will want support. SUNW will survive and prosper for some years yet. Their execution has left much to be desired since 1996 or so, but they are winning the Unix battle. Linux will grow at a breathtaking pace, but even an incredible 20% growth per year for the next 3 or 4 years only gets them 20% or so of the Unix market. Outside of Web services, particularly Apache, Linux remains on the edge. It's a good business opportunity, but only if one chooses carefully where to deploy it. I love Linux, but I'll know we've broken through early resistance when the name is no longer a spelling error for the InfoSpace/SI spell-checker. -g/ng --Tux -g