On Mar 18, 6:56 am, Steven Herod <steven.he...@gmail.com> wrote: > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123735970806267921.html > > Personally, it's probably good for 'Java', bad for everything else you > might like about the Sun software and hardware ecosystem.
I think it's probably good for Java, too. Whether Sun does the right thing with Java and it's other software projects or not, it's all in vain if Sun, the company, can't survive. Looking at the financials, Sun is the Dead Man Walking of the IT industry. Back on Oct 9, 2008, long before the bottom fell out of the stock market, Sun supposedly had close to $3.5 billion in the bank (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/ 2008/10/09/sun-microsystems-a-lesson-in-failed-cosmetic-surgery/). Today there were only around $1.6 billion left (http:// techpulse360.com/2009/03/18/ibm-to-buy-sun-microsystems/). In five months, Sun burned through $1.9 billion in cash, meaning they could be completely out of cash in four months, give or take a month or two (yes, this calculation may be oversimplified, but I stand by the trend). So let's see, where does Sun revenue come from? 60% come from server and storage hardware that go to financial institutions and telecoms, mostly in the U.S., and that was down 14% year-to-year (http:// www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/earnings_releases/Q209_SLD.pdf, slide 4). Sorry, but no short-term rescue in sight there, not in this recession with a lot of banks expected to go under soon. Plus, starting tomorrow, the phones in all Sun accounts will ring off the hook because the Sun competitors will play the FUD card and try to get customers to switch away from Sun. Given the state of Sun, don't you think that big, conservative customers feel safer when IBM backs Java, a company with deep pockets, not a company on life support? And from all companies out there, IBM as the second-biggest software company in the world has the most to lose if Java goes under. Look at their five software brands (http:// www-01.ibm.com/software) - three of them run on Java: WebSphere is Java + Eclipse OSGI kernel, Lotus (on the client) is Java + Eclipse RCP + Open Office fork (and probably Java + Eclipse OSGI kernel on the server), Rational is Java + Eclipse. Out of pure self interest, IBM will maintain Java, given that (like Linux) it's the one thing that runs across all their systems - mainframe, PowerPC, X86/64. > AIX v. Solaris Wrong. IBM declared a number of years ago officially that AIX will eventually migrate to Linux, so it's "Solaris vs. Linux". But IBM supports its products forever if that brings in money - heck, they supported OS/2 ten years after it died (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Os/2#Fading_out). My guess: IBM supports Solaris for a long time but offers migration to Linux. > Power vs Sparc No idea what would happen here. > Lotus Symphony vs OpenOffice Wrong: Lotus Symphony is "Eclipse RCP plus unknown OpenOffice version" (http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2992), so I don#t see a lot of conflict. > Websphere vs Glassfish Wrong: Either "WebSphere + Glassfish" or "Glassfish vs. Geronimo", since Glassfish could be the low-end open source complement to the high-end commercial WebSphere, just like Geronimo. My guess: IBM would merge these two in one shape or another. > Eclipse vs Netbeans Yes, that's a tough nut - can't see how they get united, and Eclipse underpins at least three of the five IBM software brands in one way or another. My guess: Netbeans gets spun off into a foundation, gets an initial check from IBM and is on its own from then as n open source project without corporate backing. > DB2 vs MySQL Wrong: "DB2 + MySL" (see above - MySQL as low-end complement to DB2). --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
