Read the latest in earnings reports and financial news from some Sun and other technology’s leading players. This page over at News.com is updated as new reports are filed. Keep checking back for the latest. In other financial news, Microsoft sets its first-ever annual stock dividend and says it will split its stock as earnings surpass expectations.
Earnings Alert: Sun Loses $2.3 Billion
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
it isn’t as if SUN is selling things at a lost. In fact their profit margins were up. The “loss” is non-cash as the article points out and is due to their acquisitions being worth less (not worthless though
Otherwise SUN would have made a small profit. Sun, according to the article, has $5.3 billion in cash so they can handle tough competition by investing in research and development and come up with some good new products.
Sun has billions in cash, good hardware, a respected operating system and Java. Their stock price though indicates that the market isn’t very confident about the future of the company. I think Sun needs a Steve Jobs like visionary to lay out a road map that is exciting and workable. Right now, the direction and goals of the company are too cloudy.
having a Steve Jobs might be risky… now they have a stable grip on a niche market, they wouldn’t want to lose it
>>>I think Sun needs a Steve Jobs like visionary to lay out a road map that is exciting and workable. Right now, the direction and goals of the company are too cloudy.
Visionaries are the reason why SUN is losing money. All those grandiose visions about the world of good vs. evil (aka microsoft). You don’t see IBM and BEA kicking and screaming about the evils of Microsoft’s .net thing. IBM and BEA are making hundreds of millions of dollars each year on enterprise java app servers, where SUN is in a distant forth place (behind Oracle). SUN’s visionaries view Microsoft as the evil enemy, but in reality IBM and HP are their greatest competitors.
Of all the earning reports, Eugenia picked 2 – SUN is down, Microsoft is up. Like IBM didn’t report profit and AMD didn’t report the loss. Quite obvious.
Sun’s “loss” is a paper loss – companies that Sun bought lost their value. The not so good news is 4,400 layoff Sun is going to do. Microsoft is finally paying dividends on their stock – does it mean that MSFT only now became profitable? Or just Bill decided he has enough and start sharing his profit with common folks.
I am really amazed by OSNews approach – get financial news from tech sites and technology news from business sites.
Whatever.
The link is there, whoever clicks it, he will see the reports of all these companies. You are SO EASY to point the finger and talk crap over here without having the details. Pretty much, the first half of my newsbit is copy/paste from the news.com article (INCLUDING the header) and then I REALIZED that the news.com folks did not include in the same page the microsoft article (which is linked from their frontpage currently, but it is NOT present in the link I was intended to provide here). Therefore, I HAD to just copy/paste these two lines about Ms from the news.com article.
In respect, what you have here my friend, is the copy/paste of thee BYLINE of the two links/articles on news.com. I just put them together instead of creating TWO newsbits articles on osnews, which would not be a good idea as most of our readers prefer tech news and not financial ones. So, I decided to put TWO articles in one, it has nothing to do with PICKING MS and Sun’s fates. I don’t give a shit about their financials, I don’t own stock of anyone.
I am THAT CLOSE from moding down your UNFAIR comment and I indeed I would appreciate an apology about your remarks towards me. Thank you.
As any of the editors here, I have to make choices and “glue” articles together that will fit in a single newsbit etc. And you are an older reader, you already know that we always use the bylines of the articles we link to. This was no different. >:(
I wish people THINK a bit before being so easy to talk in such a way without having a clue about how things are.
Sun (like all Unix companies) is going to feel the pinch. Linux and the BSDs have marginalized their software with effective and free alternatives. It is sad, really, when you consider how vibrant the Unix segment used to be.
pro-MS
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I feel myself comfortable to say in Eugenia’s defense she is an impartial person, who doesn’t seek to favour any company IMHO.
This vision that Microsoft has a dominant role is not only Eugenia’s; it is a fact widely accepted as truth. People forget that only 25 years ago (not much in corporate time) Microsoft was only a dream.
Of course, being a Linux-only user it bothers me all this MS coverage; but the world is the way it is… changes happen slowly.
Also, as a disclaimer, I personally don’t think being impartial is politically correct. Anyway…
Unix
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>> It is sad, really, when you consider how vibrant the Unix segment used to be.
I honestly think Linux is Unix. Maybe a little different, maybe with parts rewritten. Linux is vibrant, too, and it makes Unix vibrant (just like *BSD). When things like Safari happen, I cannot help to imagine somer great convergence is bound to happen. Like someone else already pointed somewhere else, it’s as if Linux acted to reunite Unix versions forked by several hardware makers.
//5.3 billion in cash so they can handle tough competition by investing in research and development and come up with some good new products. //
Oh, yah. 5.3 billion in cash to mess with R&D …. I’m sure this is making Microsoft *very* nervous.
I mean, MS only has $40 billion in cash.
Game over.
OK Eugenia – I take back complains about being pro-MS. You may be not pro-MS but it just looked so.
Here, we had today several financial news from major computer companies (not just Sun and Microsoft). You glued 2 articles together and re-read what you got, please. “Earning alert: Sun losses … In other news, Microsoft’s earnings surpass expectations.” If you don’t care about financials and don’t own these stocks then what is this news about ? Sun loses, Microsoft wins. Yes, these are facts but my point was that from several facts of different companies you picked Sun and Microsoft. Why not IBM and AMD – there are rumors about their “merge”, at least. Just because AMD is not software company and IBM is too boring ?
You don’t comment the articles, you just copy bits and pieces – so the choice of what you copied is your opinion.
Copy and paste can be a very creative process and result in just any conclusion. I would rather prefer to see your own comments.
Actually, I don’t really care if you’re pro-MS. I think you (as well as me) over that love/hate emotions towards any company. Too much emotions were burned in BeOS time.
Please, don’t feel insulted. If you pick tech web site to copy interesting financial news, I understand – it’s quite normal when tech people read only tech web sites. I just surprised to see when you cite Forbes.com and Goldman Sachs with technology news. Just buy some stocks on their recommendations and then I’ll see how high you would value their opinion.
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Of all the earning reports, Eugenia picked 2 – SUN is down, Microsoft is up. Like IBM didn’t report profit and AMD didn’t report the loss. Quite obvious.
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So she picks the two stories concerning the companies that produce an OS to post on http://www.OSnews.com and you’re pissed?
You need to move on…that horse is DEAD!
And before you say IBM has an OS too, I say OS/2?….gimme a break!
Please OSnews is not pro-MS, many of the posters are pro-MS but that is ok because appleforever balances that out with Apple rants :->.
There are enough folks with chips on their shoulders about linux too BTW.
If Sun tightens its belt and does not pish away all that onhand cash they should be just fine. I think they make fine servers. Give me a Enterprise 4500 for a database server hooked up to a Sun Storage Array with Veritas and I am happy all day long. The only systems more stable (they were faster too) were Dec/Alphas back in the day. I am old-school so I like the way the filesystem and OS are laid out except for the SUNW stuff they throw into /opt without thinking. Sure its Slowaris but come on you have to hit the damn thing with a brick to get it to go down.
In fact the only time I have ever had trouble with Suns was this one batch 420Rs we got in that had some sort of hardware issue — they would randomly reboot (very weird) with CPU trace kernel core dumps but Sun support is great if you pay Caesar his dimes he is right at your back. Considering how many server farms I have seen and worked out and the hundreds of sun servers I have worked on or around the small number I have with troubles is a testament to Sun.
Well, in our building’s labs we have about 2000-2100 CPU-worth of assorted Sun servers (low to midrange) and just a little bit less (1800-1900) in HP PA-RISC servers. When you buy PA-RISC you pay the HP premium (compared to Sun, it’s about 1/2 of bang for the money), but I expected them to be virtually indistructible, as HP has (or had?) a reputation for high quality build. Well, after 4 years of working with both platforms, I have to say that while both Sun and PA-RISC servers are very reliable compared to standard PC hardware, the PA-RISC computers did not prove to be more reliable than the Sun servers! In fact, I’d say that Sun seems to be a bit better.