Every tier-one computer company has a core of individuals who act as the company’s Big Brains. At IBM and Novell, they are known as “fellows.” Same for Microsoft. More often than not, company Big Brains hole up in labs and rarely make public appearances. Not Jonathan Schwartz, one of the Big Brains at Sun Microsystems. Recently, VARBusiness senior executive editor T.C. Doyle caught up with Schwartz to learn more about his dual mission. Also, Sun Microsystems may add a provision to some of its Java licenses to protect consumers from Linux-related lawsuits filed by the SCO Group. “You license Java–we will indemnify you on Linux,” says Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz.
Sun’s Schwartz: Big Brain With a Dual Mission
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Sun is finally going to make money with Linux and Java. They will do this at the right time as well. The only thing though is that they should work with IBM rather than go it alone.
Linux doesn’t require indemnity because it is an open source project and a free platform. I would rather see the SCO executives sent to prison for their crimes.
I think that Sun failed in the past to use Linux successfully because they made Linux into a product rather than a platform. It looks like their goal is to make it into a product again, however they have a strategy that will help them, and that is mobile technology, and simplification of choices involving middleware.
Sun is not much different than Microsoft, and they look poised to take away a lot of business from Microsoft by providing a more cost effective deal along with superior technology.
I wouldn’t mind this as long as it takes the heat off of open source development. So long as we have a platform which we can build upon and remain free from violent takeover. I’m not excited about Mad Hatter, but I think that businesses should be.
I think that Sun failed in the past to use Linux successfully because they made Linux into a product rather than a platform.
Actually, the main reason for failure is they don’t want Gnu/Linux to succeed. The rest is a 2nd-order approx. From the article:
“Sun, in fact, will try to erode Linux’s growth in the marketplace by promoting a version of Solaris that runs on servers with chips from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices.”
Understandable motivation, but one wonders if they really get the point why people use a Gnu OS. Perhaps they do, because they’re not talking about winning, merely slowing growth.
Sun Microsystems really doesn’t “get” the PR game. This Linux amnesty offer they are making is more likely to annoy potential customers than woo them. They are seen now as being buddy buddy with a company (SCO) that through it’s own incompetency will destroy the current software business. SCO not only wants to destroy any Unix competition, but they want ALL DERIVITIVE WORKS of SysV to become SCO property. If you follow SCO executive’s explanations, any code that I create on top of a SysV derived OS that links to their libraries becomes SCO property. Sun is allying itself with that kind of mentality by offering amnesty to anyone licensing Java on top of Linux. This is the same kind of extortion that SCO is guilty of. Time to tell the old boy network of Sun and SCO to go shove it.
Have sun ever thought about talking to customers and asked *why* they chose Linux over Solaris being pre-installed on their server? Find out why, then address the issues.
SUN should spend less time on Linux and more time on their own software line up. They have a great operating system that is reasonably compatible with Linux – in most cases, application mearly need re-compiling to run.
Why are they trying to chase the x86 market with Linux when they can provide a much better solution using their already established operating system.
Sounds like someone’s parents really love the Spaceballs movie
. Use the Schwartz!
As for sun: I have a Sun Fire v880 at work (running Solaris for obvious reasons) and I love it. I wouldn’t change it for an IBM for anything in the world! *hugs the box*
Solaris has merits, and it has demerits. Price is one of it’s biggest demerrits. Sun understands they are losing a good deal of business to the cheaper x86/PPC hardware platforms running either a BSD or Linux. This is pure competition at play. A brand new Sun workstation can easily cost many thousands, most of that is in the OS and other software licensings. In many cases Linux can do better for less than 1/4 of the price. Even if you need 2 x86 to do the work of one Sun station or server, the PC/Linux wins. You just cluster the 2 computers. Oracle understands the vital importance of cluster computing. Sun understands it, but they call it grid computing. IBM understands it. HP understands it. Microsoft will catch up in a couple of years then call it innovation.
I can do the same thing a single Sun enterprise class 64 CPU server with a bunch of PCs running Linux. No big deal, you can even do it with no out-of-pocket expense on the hardware if you are a good scavenger. Sure it’s a “poor man’s” supercomputer, but the price is right compared to several hundred thousand US dollars for the comparable Sun hardware.
Sure x86 quality often leaves much to be desired, but you can still get from point A to point B just as easily in a Ford Mustang as you could a Mercedes S model.
I’d like to get a Sun box to emulate a Lisp machine, but unfortunately the license is like $5k just for the lispM software, and the Symbolic guys don’t seem too much into supporting it.
“Oracle understands the vital importance of cluster computing. Sun understands it, but they call it grid computing.”
If i understood correctly, Oracle calls it grid computing as well.
Quote:
“Well, okay. Oracle database version 10 has been introduced (it is set to be released at the end of the year), and it’s not even 10i. It’s called 10g, for grid computing, which is the new market spin Oracle is putting on an old topic for the business market: buy lots of cheap computers, use their “unbreakable” database, application server, and management software, and you’ll have a network that will never go offline.”
Source:
‘Oracle putting different spin on an old strategy’ http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/09/08/2333234.shtml?tid=48
Schwartz is lying in his free commercial at VARbusiness:
Schwartz: [..] The other issue is: “Well, we run Intel here.” My response is that there are only three operating systems left on Intel: Microsoft Windows, Sun’s Orion and Red Hat. Every other Linux vendor is bankrupt. [..]
Poor SuSE? SuSE is just one of the many which is NOT bankrupt. Mandrake might be near bankrupt, but they are not bankrupt. And those are just a few. It’s a lie. He makes it -besides big ones like SuSE- look like the less popular and/or smaller commercial vendors and all the community-driven vendors do not exist at all…
If you take the time and read by original post, I am referring to Solaris x86 NOT Solaris SPARC.
Let me re emphasise. SUN should pre-install their x86 servers with Solaris, the performance on SMP configurations is awsome and with the solid reputation Solaris has, it will push their x86 line up in front of Linux and Windows.
Poor SuSE? SuSE is just one of the many which is NOT bankrupt. Mandrake might be near bankrupt, but they are not bankrupt. And those are just a few. It’s a lie. He makes it -besides big ones like SuSE- look like the less popular and/or smaller commercial vendors and all the community-driven vendors do not exist at all…
I personally can’t work it out either considering that SUN has chosen SuSE as the base of their Project Madhatter. Also, IIRC, SuSE is a profitable private business that ONLY started losing money when they expanded into the US and unfamilar with the “unique marketing stratergies” one would need to employ to get into the US market.
Deep down, SUN knows that their days of expensive UNIX systems will be long gone soon and will be relegated to the same space as mainframes. Also, margins on hardware is VERY low, just look at the HP revenue vs profit as a prime example of this.
SUN is expanding into Software and their SUN One line up is a VERY good product range, infact, if possible, I would encourage SUN to buy out a good DB vendor, Sybase would be a good one. If SUN can provide a great middleware selection that can run on either Windows, Solaris (SPARC and x86) and Linux. This delivers flexibility to the customer and the vendor.
“A brand new Sun workstation can easily cost many thousands, most of that is in the OS and other software licensings.”
This is incorrect. Solaris on a Sun OEM system isn’t more than a couple hundred dollars. Sun’s compiler suite is under a thousand, now, but that’s optional. When a person pays $10,000 for a dual-cpu Sun Blade 2000, they are paying for a well-engineered system that can take whatever abuse the user has in store.
“I can do the same thing a single Sun enterprise class 64 CPU server with a bunch of PCs running Linux.”
IMO (and lots of others’ as well), SMP and clustered systems each fufill a niche, which is why Sun sells both 100+ CPU and single-CPU machines (and everything in-between). What works for you isn’t necessarily something that works someone else.
“Hard to pin down one, but, obviously, I think the idea that we plan on offering a Microsoft-compatible desktop platform that includes the Windowing environment, a browser, an office-productivity suite and [legal] indemnity for about 50 bucks a user or, more likely, about 30 cents per day, is pretty compelling.”
This is what the “Big Brains” at SUN are coming up with. <shakes head> time to dump SUN stock.