Sun Microsystems may be warming up to the idea of selling Microsoft’s Windows operating system on its servers. Tom Goguen, vice president of operating platform marketing for Sun, said this week that while Sun currently has no definite plan to strike a deal with Microsoft to sell Windows, the vendor will consider it if customers and partners think it’s a good idea.
Well if that is what customers are asking for then so be it, I guess that they were going to buy a Windows server anyway at least this gives Sun a lead in to provide Solaris as the customer scales up.
OpenOffice is the only Sun product that I care about, so I don’t have a problem with them supporting and using Windows at all.
I guess that means Solaris must really suck. What company that makes OS’s would drop their OS in favor of someone else’s? next thing you know Apple is going to be dropping webcore so Safari can use IE for it’s rendering engine.
This is why no one trusts Sun. Sun doesn’t stand behind their products just their money.
I guess that means Solaris must really suck. What company that makes OS’s would drop their OS in favor of someone else’s? next thing you know Apple is going to be dropping webcore so Safari can use IE for it’s rendering engine.
Ummmm…hmmmm, lets see HP (HP-UX, OpenVMS) does this, oh and so does IBM (AIX). And I see no issue with this at all considering that all of these companies are hardware companies, which means they are of course, going to be interested in moving hardware not operating system’s. Who said anything about dropping Solaris, its called offering choice. and wtf has safari and its rendering engine got to do with this.
This is why no one trusts Sun. Sun doesn’t stand behind their products just their money.
Could you substantiate this whith some evidence, or is this just another baseless rant?
I thought you bought pricy sun servers because you have to run real solaris. x86’s are dirt cheap, and opterons don’t cost much more.
> I thought you bought pricy sun servers because you have to run real solaris. x86’s are dirt cheap, and opterons don’t cost much more.
Actually even the concept of “pricey” Sun server is history. Sun servers are now some of the cheapest servers you can buy from any top tier vendor (Dell included). Sun is a value player now and offering the choice of preinstalling Solaris, Linux or Windows is good for the customers. HP and IBM are doing it, why not Sun? Ask me, I sure as hell wouldn’t run Windowz on Sun box. Solaris 10 all the way, baby!
ok so sun drops linux, M$,apple,and SUN team together to offer the all around total package in a together we stand against linux sort of move…..oops left out DELL, dell for the home system, SUN for the server, they can fight over the workstation…
…ok, details are rough but I am sketching it out here…
> ok so sun drops linux, M$,apple,and SUN team together to offer the all around total package in a together we stand against linux sort of move
Hah, M$, Apple and Sun teaming together? What are you on PCP? They hate each other’s guts. Apple and Sun will backstab M$ any time of the day given the opportunity. So Sun and Apple don’t care much about Linux, big frigging deal, they’ve got better products of their own to care about (Solaris, Mac OS X).
yes i am half crazy, and half very conspiracy theoryish…
and yes, i realize that half of what I say sounds totally asinine if you take it in relation to what the companies position currently is….BUT nothing says that all that cant change in a heartbeat…that a few big names realize that they could trade a few spots here and there, and move a few positions on the board, and instead of having to play nice and take what comes they could band together and control/dictate what comes……
big players
M$,dell,apple, possibly throw sun in there as well, of course as long as dell and apple both go for intel processors then you can sort of add intel in there as sort of a side deal!!! of course sun is a strange one to have in there….hmmmmmm…. oh well – talking to myself
hello my name is Jake Tate and i am a “total choice” sales rep
“we can offer you sun servers, with either appleOS/M$OS dell workstations, a choice of staroffice or M$office and a free ipod!” “we also offer discounts on our home units that also offer your choice of appleOS/M$OS brought to you by dell running intel processors”
Why would I buy Sun equipment with Windows on it when I can get hardware from Lenovo? Or Dell for that matter. What makes Sun so different? Besides pretty purple cases?
ok…
on the show survivor you see people “form a alliance” to get rid of what they consider threats…
havent you ever talked some people into joining with you to get what you want… especially when you have tried to do it yourself but failed….
so imagine that M$ has their butt-kissy face on and is promising money to everyone to form the next big thing, i mean M$ has been hit left and right for a while now and are tired of being the whipping boy…
so could M$ be asking around and feeling things out to see what could be made of it, could some enemies get along if it meant being a part of something bigger….think about it…
sun servers with solaris, or maybe you want a dell server with M$serverOS, maybe you want appleOS workstations or M$ workstations, ….. etc…
either way it is our “group” that gets the money, it is our group that gets paid for consultation, it is our group that gets support contract, it is our group that GETS MINDSHARE, that gains POPULARITY and is the next big thing that EVERYONE wants to put everywhere……and offers the “total choice”
something about being greater than the sum of its parts…..
then again i may just be nuckin futs!
> Why would I buy Sun equipment with Windows on it when I can get hardware from Lenovo? Or Dell for that matter. What makes Sun so different? Besides pretty purple cases?
Sun has got by far the best Opteron powered hardware on the market and can offer the gear at prices lower than Dell. Remember that Sun is #1 AMD Opteron seller on the maket. On top of that Sun has got a very solid reputation behind its servers (compare that with Dell’s or Lenovo’s reputation for cheap and crappy PC garbage).
April 1st is long gone…
I use SOLARIS a lot on SUN boxes. Great platform. But often really do need MS Word and Powerpoint, and hate having to go across the room to fire up a PC. Maybe in all these agreements between SUN and MS, we could get WORD and POWERPOINT for SOLARIS 10.
That people change their minds everyday.
What kind of business model is that?
“best Opteron powered hardware on the market and can offer the gear at prices lower than Dell”
doesnt help when you IT guy is a MCSE, so the “total choice” sales rep would be offering him a dell/M$ server or a SUN/M$ server offer…
…maybe….
<Simpson’s quote>
HA HA
/Nelson
The absolute classic mistake that all Microsoft’s rivals have made – feeling under pressure to somehow sell Windows, even when they don’t need to. No customer chooses Windows, Solaris or Linux – they are simply interested in what you have to sell. That’s something people just don’t get; Microsoft have always told their customers what they’re going to be using, not the other way around.
Sun have seemingly always had this identity crisis of who they are, what they’re doing and what they’re actually selling. If Microsoft can play well and get its claws further into Sun’s already extremely confused psyche then they could easily wind up in control of Sun’s market and customers. Microsoft has long sought to get into the Unix world somehow and gazump it, and Sun seems to be saying that they can come on in. Sun are different from other companies like HP and IBM in that they are a purely Unix and server oriented company. They don’t really do anything else, and going down this route would hurt their core business very badly. But hey, not even Sun seem to know what their core business is or where the money comes from. Seriously guys, do yourselves a favour, sit down and do a proper SWOT analysis, OK? Pay particular attention to what goes under the heading ‘Threats’ ;-).
I don’t know why on Earth Sun thinks that Linux is going to kill them and Windows isn’t. Ours is not to reason why I suppose, but Sun are currently putting their heads down the toilet and pulling the chain themselves. They must be laughing their backsides off in Redmond.
i read your post and nod my head all the way thru it….. nice! especially the last line, probably spot on!
> The absolute classic mistake that all Microsoft’s rivals have made – feeling under pressure to somehow sell Windows, even when they don’t need to. No customer chooses Windows, Solaris or Linux – they are simply interested in what you have to sell. That’s something people just don’t get; Microsoft have always told their customers what they’re going to be using, not the other way around.
What you said above is absolute and utter nonsense. Sun is under no pressure to sell Windows and there is absolutely nothing for Sun to loose in this arrangement. Sun will just gain more in hardware revenue and better penetration to accounts that may have never considered Solaris and other Sun products otherwise. Selling Sun hardware kit running Windows may lead to displacing Windows with Solaris in the future and possibly attaching middleware and storage sales. The more ground Sun can cover with penetration to new accounts the better it is for Sun in the future.
If there is anything that differentiates Sun it’s that they DON’T SELL ANY MICROSOFT PRODUCTS.
Sun, you settled the lawsuit with Microsoft, you’re doing basic interoperability with Microsoft, be happy while you can! Don’t become their OEM!
You have been warned!
Ugh, why did this Sun VP have to hint at Sun becoming a Windows OEM? Solaris 10 is so much better than Windows–just understand that selling Solaris and Linux is enough. The incremental profit from selling Windows is like the gingerbread house…don’t go inside the house!
Microsoft exists to dominate their OEMs. I know Sun has some of the best lawyers in the business, but once you continue down that path you’re stuck. What would you do, say to your customers, “Uh, this Windows thing isn’t working out for us, we have to drop your support?” Customers would shed you like a sweater that caught on fire.
Oh please oh please Sun don’t become a Microsoft OEM!
What you said above is absolute and utter nonsense.
I’m afraid not.
Sun is under no pressure to sell Windows…
Why talk about it then?
…and there is absolutely nothing for Sun to loose in this arrangement.
Sun has absolutely everything to lose, and I’ve explained why.
Sun will just gain more in hardware revenue and better penetration to accounts that may have never considered Solaris and other Sun products otherwise.
What hardware revenue? Sun makes absolutely no money on their hardware whatsoever because they’re effectively giving it away because they’re afraid of this Linux thing. Trying to compete with Dell on that score is a very dumb idea, but you wouldn’t put anything past Sun.
You also talk about penetration into accounts that may not have considered Solaris and Sun products. How in God’s teeth is Sun going to sell Solaris and their products if Sun are selling Windows first?! That is just utter bollocks I’m afraid. Sun could sell their software and services on top of Windows, but of course, Microsoft controls Windows. If Sun were to depend on Windows in this way Microsoft would just gradually squeeze things like Java as they normally do through a combination of OEM agreements and simply pre-installing and favouring their own technology with Windows. Microsoft is in control of that scenario, not Sun, and they would simply exist at the behest of Microsoft.
It’s quite clear that you’re talking total nonsense here.
Selling Sun hardware kit running Windows may lead to displacing Windows with Solaris in the future and possibly attaching middleware and storage sales.
How on Earth is selling Sun boxes running Windows going to aid a migration to Solaris in the future?! And once Sun’s customers are locked in, they’re not going to be able to go to Solaris anyway. That’s probably the worst bit of tosh of the lot.
The more ground Sun can cover with penetration to new accounts the better it is for Sun in the future.
That just about sums up Sun’s indecision right there.
He lives in the UK
Yer, and?
and is constantly wrong.
Really? I suppose this comment makes my comments look even more wrong then ;-). If you want to tell other people their wrong that it is usually customary to say why they’re wrong, come up with a meaningful answer and earn that right.
A little child with a severe personality disorder.
Funny.
What is wrong with this kid?
Reverse psychology. You’re a kid with a personality disorder who’s a bit cheesed off with the things I’ve wrote but can’t think of anything meaningful to counteract them ;-).
“Selling Sun hardware kit running Windows may lead to displacing Windows with Solaris in the future and possibly attaching middleware and storage sales.”
This won’t happen, because it isn’t how Microsoft operates. The likelihood of replacing Windows on Dell with Solaris 10 on Dell is the same as replacing Windows on Sun with Solaris 10 on Sun. The lock-in is the same. There are too many little details that Windows customers get strung up on that migrating is near impossible. Just wait until Microsoft convinces the customers to start automating things in MS Office and Visual Basic. It is a road of no return.
Sun execs talk about the “barriers to exit” regarding open standards-based systems. The barrier to exit from Windows is a 100 foot high wall with a moat of alligators and poisonous snakes in front of it.
While talking to one Microsoft salesman, there’s another sneaking up behind you to stab you in the back. Windows is hell.
thrashing in all directions, yet not finding the way back to the ocean.
tomorrow they will reject Windows and embrace Linux again. the same old, the same old.
Yeah, worked real well for SGI. There is a lot to say for a company that sticks to its guns and works to improve its IP and OS in order to stay competitive. If people see that Sun views Windows as an equal to Solaris with the added benefit that it runs on their hardware why buy Solaris?
> Maybe in all these agreements between SUN and MS,
> we could get WORD and POWERPOINT for SOLARIS 10.
Dear Kev,
this is exactly the reason why Sun Microsystems bought a small company named StarDivision GmbH, located in Hamburg, in 1999: In order to have a Word and PowerPoint replacement for Solaris.
But the product did not sell very well, so it was open-sourced, just like parts of Solaris were last month. Any similarities to Solaris and OpenSolaris are, of course, purely coincidental.
What’s sun doing now?!?
– First they get behind solaris x86, then ditch it, then bring it back again.
– First they get behind linux on the desktop, then ditch it.
– They buy a large enterprise storage provider (storagetek) and then sign a dev agreement with EMC.
– Now they’re running stories about Windows on Sun kit.
Maybe this is why Dell is doing so well; they’re consistant about only doing Intel/EMC/windows/netware/linux. Their story hasn’t changed in the last decade, and it’s unlikely to radically shift anytime soon. It’s much easier to do business with a company if you know what they’re doing . . .
They’ve been selling Windows on their servers for a long time now and I don’t see any of you trolls complaining about them!!
Sun is simply doing what’s right for any professional or responsible company: do what the customer wants
that’s why they also go through the effort of officially certifying all their x86 machines to work with Windows AND RedHat aside from Solaris
“this is exactly the reason why Sun Microsystems bought a small company named StarDivision GmbH, located in Hamburg, in 1999: In order to have a Word and PowerPoint replacement for Solaris.
But the product did not sell very well, so it was open-sourced, just like parts of Solaris were last month. Any similarities to Solaris and OpenSolaris are, of course, purely coincidental.”
Point of fact – when Sun first bought StarOffice it did not sell it. It gave it away free as in beer with binary versions for Solaris, Linux and Windows. It did this precisely to bug MS. A year or so later it then decided to open source the project on the same basis as Netscape/Mozilla. It only started selling StarOffice after the release of Openoffice 1.0 using it as the basis for proprietary Staroffice 6.
“Point of fact”: when Sun gave StarOffice away for free and later open-sourced it in order to bug MS, it did not succeed. When Sun open-sourced Solaris, it did so precisely to bug Linux, but it will fail (just as open-sourcing StarOffice and Netscape failed).
By the way, StarOffice was freeware even before. StarDivision did that and the Linux version was always freeware. It does not even matter, it’s clear that everybody who cooperates with MS too much will lose at the end (Adobe cooperated too much and now MS comes up with “Metro” and “Acrylic”, both bundled with their OS).
They’ve been selling Windows on their servers for a long time now and I don’t see any of you trolls complaining about them!!
It’s the nature of Sun’s business that’s the problem. All they do is sell Unix systems and their hardware, whereas IBM do quite a bit more than that. There’s simply too much cross-over with what Sun are already doing with Solaris, Java and other software. Anything at all that threatens that is problematic for their revenue and their future standing. Linux certainly doesn’t threaten that because no one controls the technology direction within it like Microsoft does with Windows.
It is conceivable they could do it from a desktop perspective (because that’s where the real lock-in is, not servers), but they need to have a clear idea of what they want to protect and what the future would hold. They would also need an extremely strong constitution in thrashing out an OEM agreement with Microsoft. If they can gazump Microsoft back by making sure they get a large installed base of Windows users out there using Windows systems pre-installed with Java, programming tools, StarOffice, Mozilla and Sun system tools (Sun branded systems, like you see on laptops) then they could really use it to their advantage. It would then be possible for them to slowly consume Windows, make the Windows system irrelevant from a programming perspective, and before you know it, people would find they could move to Solaris/JDS/Linux/whatever systems without any problems whatsoever.
Microsoft would probably never let them get away with that kind of OEM agreement, but if Sun really wanted to do this then they can’t settle for anything less.
Having thought about it, I think that’s a very good plan (and one that would fly over a Sun executive’s head at 30,000 feet). However, installing Windows on servers would give them absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Sun is simply doing what’s right for any professional or responsible company: do what the customer wants
No computing company has ever survived that did what the customer wanted and moved from one fad to the next. It’s IT companies that dictate technology directions, not customers.
McNealy loses his spine.
I worked in MS PSS a couple of years ago; was thumbing through support contracts one day out of curiosity to see what MS “competitors” had support contracts w/ MS (and how much they paid yearly for them). All of the “competitors” (Oracle/IBM/Apple/Adobe/etc) had extensive (and expensive) contracts…notably absent from that list was Sun. No contract whatsoever. Looks like things are changing :-).
Here’s one reason to consider a Sun box to run windows.
The box has been certified to run 3 OS’s.
So, that’s 3 different versions of drivers verified.
That’s good flexibility.
Plus, one of AMD’s problems has been cheap motherboards.
If these systems have been tested and certified to run 3 OS’s then you probably don’t need to worry about motherboard problems.
Probably the smartest way to buy AMD systems.
IBM: bigger than Microsoft
Sun: not bigger than Microsoft
Golden Rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.
IBM: bigger than Microsoft
True, but Microsoft has a level of technological control and lock-in over the computing world that IBM does not. That’s where the real gold is.
> All of the “competitors” (Oracle/IBM/Apple/Adobe/etc)
> had extensive (and expensive) contracts…notably
> absent from that list was Sun. No contract whatsoever.
Sun already has contracts with Microsoft. There is at least a contract that neither Sun nor Microsoft will sue the other’s customers for patent infringement. There might be more.
> Looks like things are changing :-).
Yes, they are. What’s the next step? An official Java compiler for the .NET platform from Sun?
I talked to many people inside sun and none were aware of anything like this happening. Who will sell Windows when Solaris10 rocks like anything. There could be a talk of laxing out the JDS in favor of solaris10 x86, but selling windows?
I suppose it means HP-UX, AIX, OpenVMS, Unicos, Irix, Linux all suck then.. becuase venders that offer those OS’s also offer windows
MS PSS == Product Support Services. By contracts I meant support contracts (wasn’t very clear on that). All the large companies have what is called “Premier” support that guarantees them dedicated support services; these contracts range in costs anywhere from 50kUSD to several million (IBM is in the top 5 for cost, they pay many millions/year for dedicated MS support). Sun was absent from *any* support contract list that I could find…this was when McNealy was pretty open about how much he despised MS.
I suppose it means HP-UX, AIX, OpenVMS, Unicos, Irix, Linux all suck then.. becuase venders that offer those OS’s also offer windows
No use trying to reason with them; SUN has a future, and if customers wish to purchase a SUN server, like their new galaxy servers they’re going to release, and run Windows on it, then so be it – SUNs next opportunity is to try to sell the customer the middleware stack that makes up the Java Enterprise System; the idea is, no matter what the customer buys, SUN is hoping to get atleast one bit of SUN technology bought in the equation – thats a *GOOD* move.
First and foremost, they’re a hardware company, the software and services are the icing on the cake, these two also have the biggest profit margin as well, so little wonder that SUN is trying to push their middleware side of the equation.
So right now, SUN is selling servers loaded with Solaris 10, Red Hat Linux, Novell Enterprise Linux and very soon we’ll see Windows being sold side-by-side with all that line up; choice for the customer is a good thing(tm)
> I suppose it means HP-UX, AIX, OpenVMS, Unicos, Irix, Linux all suck then.. becuase venders that offer those OS’s also offer windows
Yep, IBM and HP have been using this strategy for ages — use the low end platform (possibly even a loss leader) running whatever OS customer wants (Windows or Linux) to gain at least some footing in the account. Then having the foot in the door on the account it is a lot easier to sell higher margin stuff, which really makes a difference (high end servers, storage, middleware, services, etc.) Apparently it worked pretty damn well for both IBM and HP, I don’t see a reason why this strategy wouldn’t work for Sun. Sun is already putting presure on IBM and HP on the low end, the fact that Sun is #1 Opteron server supplier on the market should already tell you something. Sun should also be able to undercut Dell, since Sun can leverage the price of the offering through bundling (i.e sell hardware at cost, make profit on Solaris, middleware, storage and service sales), something Dell can’t do.
I think what people also need to realise is that their Ultra 20 pricing is for Joe Public; if a company asked them for 10,000 units, one thing I can assure you, SUN would be cutting the cost of these things by $200 to win the account.
IMHO, SUN need to launch a Ultra 4 Workstation, the size of a pizza box; easily swappable components, good deals on replacement parts, and sell the whole thing for around $500 and throw on a screen for another hundred; pre-install Solaris 10, JDS, StarOffice, and give them 25 free technical support calls or three years support, which ever comes first – that would win alot of contracts, believe me!
“So, you sold your soul to Satan, your grace.” Friar, Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves (1991)
Unbelievable!!!!!
It sounds like “we’re Microsoft [star trek borg?], you’ll be assimilated, resistance is futile!”
(((
Hoping it’s only a joke..
I suppose it means HP-UX, AIX, OpenVMS, Unicos, Irix, Linux all suck then.. becuase venders that offer those OS’s also offer windows
Which UNICOS vendor is selling Windows on their machines? Cray obviously not, and except Cray XD1 you cannot even run Windows on the CPUs used.
It sounds like “we’re Microsoft [star trek borg?], you’ll be assimilated, resistance is futile!”
(((
No, not quite. It rather sounded like somebody announcing:
“The borgs are so nice, my friends keep asking me to get assimilated. I will make an appointment with the Queen next week…”
“Yep, IBM and HP have been using this strategy for ages — use the low end platform (possibly even a loss leader) running whatever OS customer wants (Windows or Linux) to gain at least some footing in the account.”
Yeah, except those companies haven’t invested the time and money into their versions of Unix that Sun has in Solaris. MAYBE Sun will sell more hardware, but just like with Linux they’ll have another OS competing against their own. Maybe it’s time they shift to being a software oriented company, especially since their putting Solaris on Opterons anyway. They certainly haven’t shown the kind of profit from hardware sales that whey would have liked.
They buy a large enterprise storage provider (storagetek) and then sign a dev agreement with EMC.
Perhaps you haven’t heard the news, but StorageTek makes tapes and tape libraries. Their disk storage is mostly rebadged Engenio stuff. EMC, on the other hand, doesn’t make tapes or tape libraries but does make their own disk storage.
Did it occur to you that perhaps StorageTek and EMC offer two different things?