Sun Microsystems tried to acquire Apple once and then almost merged with Apple on two other occasions, according to Sun co-founder Bill Joy. Beyond these deals, the two companies almost teamed on three other projects including sharing a user interface and the SPARC architecture.
Sun and Apple Almost Merged Three Times – Bill Joy
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… and where would Apple be now if there’d been a buyout/merger?
Probably where Sun is now, not very good.
All IMHO, of course
Jb
I think both companies would better off. Between the two of them, they would be a larger force on the server and on the desktop. OS X would have Solaris as it’s base. Surely that can’t be bad. Also, just because they merged, nobody said that McNealy would be charge.
McNeely is a bright and funny guy, but he’s no Steve Jobs. There’d be no iPod, for one thing….
Speaking of bright and funny: I was immediately struck by the appearance that microshag was answering you rather than the other way around.
Would Solaris have been opened if Jobs was in charge? After all, the NextStep development environment did get ported to x86…
But of course that will never happen to MacOS. {d^;]>
As regards OSX and Solaris, it basically did happen when NeXT and SUN got together and produced Openstep, which was basically the Nextstep development enviroment and GUI (minus DPS) running ontop of Solaris. I think the came to agreement in 93, port was started in 94 and completed in 96. Of course SUN were never that interested and it died a death. But as we all know Nextstep eventually morphed it’s way into OSX.
As regards having OSX ontop of Solaris, well i wonder how hard of a job it would be porting it. Is Quartz heavily connected into Darwin/XNU? From what i’ve read it runs outside of the Kernel (like X windows). In which case it probably wouldn’t be that hard to port it between kernels if Apple were that way inclined.
Edited 2006-01-12 20:42
As regards having OSX ontop of Solaris, well i wonder how hard of a job it would be porting it. Is Quartz heavily connected into Darwin/XNU? From what i’ve read it runs outside of the Kernel (like X windows). In which case it probably wouldn’t be that hard to port it between kernels if Apple were that way inclined.
There are multiple levels of difficulty with that idea. First, modern Solaris is SVR4, while Darwin is a BSD. Second, and more importantly, OS X directly uses many Mach services like IPC, and makes direct calls to Darwin-specific kernel layers like the IOKit (which is itself quite tied to Mach as well). In theory, a BSD port would be easier, but the aforementioned reasons make that quite complex as well.
The work on Darwin compatibility for NetBSD would be a good starting place for looking at the minimal necessary interface needed to provide an ABI-compatible interface for the OS X userland.
What about OpenDarwin with GnuStep on top
They would be split between the “enterprise” server, desktop, consumer electronics, processor design, online media sales, professional media applications, and Java * markets. Yes, I’m actually skipping a lot of the cookie jars Sun has its hand in one form or another. The SPARC isn’t competitive as a desktop processor, either.
Unless Sun’s management were replaced and Sun rebranded as a more image-oriented company, I think the only thing that would happen would be a weaker position for Apple. Then again, I think most of the interest by Apple to merge with Sun was during Spindler’s time as CEO.
The word “almost” coming from SUN co-founder instead of Apple is going to be a tadge overstated and biased.
“There’s a pendulum thing where stuff is on the client side and then goes back into the network where it belongs,” McNealy said. “The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network.”
Apple is a client company and Sun is a network company, they differ greatly in philosophy. Being a child of the home computer era I must say I agree with Apple on that one. I will never trust a company with my data and want to be able to have a machine that can stand by itself.
Interestingly Sun’s new friend Google is also more of a network kind of company.
… it seems like apple has/had more in common with SGI. Visualizationa and graphics still seem to be the forte of Apple and the market that they seem to be going after (along with education). The xServe is a new thing for them. If apple starts hitting hard in the server market – then there could be some joint venture in the future – however I dont know about a merger. What would the two sides gain?
it seems that Jobs is not willing to seed power to someone else, and neither is McNealy – and they both seem to have a separate view of what they priorities are.
would have been quite interesting, would certainly have given apple a big hand into the enterpris market! OSX would almost certainly have been based on solaris (dont know how much ACTUAL difference that would have made but still…)
Also with osx and apple as partners there would have been no need for JDS as a ‘new’ interface for solaris in order to enter the desktop market
Would have been a pretty big difference I imagine – there would be no Cocoa.
I can only speculate, but I can imagine that Cocoa is a major reason why Apple went with NeXT
He’s right about the iPod, but I think everyone knows that already, I’m suprised they have lasted as long as they have, I’m sure Steve is too.
I guess something well built and easy to use will attract the masses. My prediction is that within 2 years Mactels will be selling like hotcakes for the very same reason. A lot of my very anti Mac friends are looking at them now. Intel + Design + Leopard will be an interesting mix…
As soon as your iPhone’s are out, then a lot less people will shell out for “just” a music box. Of course, the first iPhones will be over priced and probably under powered, but they will get there.
Solaris under the hood for OS X would have been great.
I do get the impression, and I’m probably miles away from reality here, but I get the impression that Jobs is out to put Gates back in his place, and he’d like to do that himself, without too much outside help. Like I say, it’s just a gut feeling I have, no more…
Apple and SUN are in two entirely different markets. What works great for the consumer market may not work well for the enterprise market. A merger between these two very different companies with two completely different focuses would be a disaster for one of them or possibly both. McNealy doesn’t see the long-term viability of the iPod, but who says that it will not be network enabled at some point in the future. The iPod seems to be the impetus behind Apple’s current success. It generates lots of revenue for them today. Who cares if it’s not around in 5 years? Apple will have moved on by then.
SUN is great at what they do (Enterprise computing). Apple is great at what they do (consumer computing). What would their focus be if they merged? Neither company nor CEO has any real experience dealing with the other’s market and the associated dynamics and problems of that market. Collaborating on technology or licensing the other’s technology seems sensible, but a merger would be awkward and suck resources and focus from both.
Sun would have taken Apple down with it. Apple’s where Sun wants to be (stockwise – compare SUNW vs AAPL) – so it’s just a case of wishful thinking on Sun’s part.
the thought of it makes me smile
Indeed.
OS-X on the niagara sparcs or amd opterons would be nice though, if Sun succeeds in acquiring Apple
Sun Microsystems:
Market-Cap: 15.02B
Revenue: 11.17B
Total Cash: 2.5B
Total Debt: 1.12B
Apple Computer Company:
Market-Cap: 71.04B
Revenue: 13.93B
Total Cash: 8.26B
Totat Debt: 0
If anyone were buying anyone, Apple would be buying Sun. Maybe Steve Job’s could do something with Java that Sun never could. Java is king on Wall Street and the other Big-Iron shops ( whose devotion will give it cockroach ( or cobol ) like persistence for decades to come ) but Sun couldn’t keep Microsoft from making it irrelevant on the client.
I don’t have any figures to prove it, but I assume that older generations of SPARC were far too hot for Apple’s purposes. Not to mention that SPARC has spend just as much time in the speed doldrums as PPC.
I fail to see *why* this would make sense. Sure, maybe they tried to buy Apple (and failed, apparently), but why? What could Apple provide to Sun and vice versa? Apple is in the desktop business, music business, movie download business, and Sun? They’re in none of those. Their core business is servers.
It’s on a par with HP buying Compaq. It might sound good, but the results, they speak of different things…
Especially if people from both companies have already discussed (unless people are going to call Bill Joy a liar). It must have made to sense to them. Apple’s trying to get into the server market and Sun’s already there. Sun’s trying to get into the desktop market and Apple’s already there. Plus Apple gets a new office app in the deal to go with OS X, and if they should ever want to kiss Intel good bye, SPARC is ready to go. You leave Jobs in charge so Apple’s innovation doesn’t take a hit, and he might just be able to do things for the new company’s server business as well. All you Mac users still get your toys, and all you Solaris people would get a whole GUI. I don’t see how they could lose. Not if the management is smart about it.
SUN is trying to get into the desktop market?
I thought their Sun Ultra 10 laptop was aimed at sysadmins who want a portable environment they work with and love. And I don’t see how OpenSolaris 10 equals desktop.
SUN is trying to get into the desktop market?
I thought their Sun Ultra 10 laptop was aimed at sysadmins who want a portable environment they work with and love. And I don’t see how OpenSolaris 10 equals desktop.
Solaris is a desktop operating system, regardless of whether it is accessed via their thin client setup, aka SUN Ray appliance devices or it being run on the desktop directly – its a desktop AND a server operating system, which ever way you choose to look at it.
What SUN needs is more applications to make Solaris 10 the viable replacement for Windows as a desktop operating system – be in either in the form of a centralised machine or as a stand alone device; rather than fritting money, they need to get those applications companies require, on their platform, be it through a damn good convincing speech, begging or paying the companies off one by one.
Since I have to hack my cell phone just to put my own ring tones on it, I’m a bit jaded. Or I could just pay Verizon $2.50 per ring tone. I don’t know about the phones being the device-center, at least in America. The cell companies have a lock on content and cripple their phones. If we could separate devices from pipes from content, everything would be fine.
It’s a fantastic idea, and the possibilities are endless, but the realities will keep it off the ground.
McNealy isn’t the best person to listen to when it comes to predicting the future.
“”My prediction is that within 2 years Mactels will be selling like hotcakes for the very same reason. A lot of my very anti Mac friends are looking at them now. Intel + Design + Leopard will be an interesting mix..””
It’s interesting that you would say that, because even here in rural michigan. Half of the teens that I know have iPods and they don’t know about all the anti-mac stuff. You know they just know how cool iPod is and that it has a bitten apple symbol on it.
Everyone of them that I’ve talked to are getting a mac and really want one.
I can’t really see what the point would be porting OSX to run on top of Solaris, don’t get me wrong, Solaris is a rock solid os, but I don’t see it as any better then FreeBSD (Darwin)
Why put the time and money into porting to Solaris, even if it was a painless process, they would need new drivers for everything and…… well, lets face it, ATI, nVidia, and other various manufacturers would be pretty pissed off if Apple went from ppc to intel to sparc and changed the underlying os to boot.
well, I guess none of this matters because I don’t think this will ever heppen….. but then again, I never thought x86 Mac would happen either. so I guess I have to mark the day on the calendar when mac announced their switch to Intel as the one time I was wrong
Poor Sun, trying so hard to be “cool” or “relevant”…
– chrish
Well, this is a register article (not a Sun article)
discussing comments made by Bill Joy. Bill Joy hasn’t
worked for Sun since 2003. How is this “Poor Sun, trying so hard to be “cool” or “relevant”… ” ?
Nice troll, welcome to 2006.