2009/7/7 Bruce Johnson <john...@pharmacy.arizona.edu>: > > > On Jul 7, 2009, at 7:00 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > >> Well, true, but for how long under Oracle's reign? > > A while I'd think. > > This was a valuable part of Sun to Oracle, (they bought Sun because > Oracle is completely dependent on Java now, and has been since the > 8i-9 transition, this way they control that bit.) > > LOTS of big-iron Oracle databases run on Sun clusters. This way they > can sell the whole widget: an industrial-sized Oracle appliance.
Personally, I think Sun's /hardware/ was wanted & will be valuable to Oracle. But remember that Sun also makes AMD and Intel x86-64 kit. I reckon /that/ is what the new owners will be interested in. SPARC doesn't offer a significant performance boost now unless your apps need lots of threads, where the Niagara chips have a distinct edge - for now. But that kind of code is fairly rare. > Plus Sun was dirt-cheap. (I laugh, thinking back to the days when all > the pundits were breathlessly suggesting that Sun buy Apple.) Indeed. Very sad. > I'm more concerned about all the OSS that Sun was nurturing: > VirtualBox, OpenOffice, Java, etc. > > Unless Oracle's looking to take a run at the utopian dream of the thin > client, and take on Microsoft in Microsoft's home court, I suspect > those things will eventually be spun off, or simply dropped off > outside Sourceforge, with a note attached "Please take care of this > orphaned Open Source". Good point; I agree. I think Larry Ellison /really/ hates Gates & Microsoft, and will do what he can to twist the knife, /so long as/ it doesn't cost him money or business. And FOSS is a useful anti-MS weapon. So they might well embrace it. I hope so, anyway. One thing Sun could assemble, fairly readily, would be a killer large-enterprise messaging solution. A far more scalable back-end server than Exchange, coupled via an instant-push-delivery protocol to a premium-grade client app. This would not actually be hard to do, but nobody's ever done it. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
