more on Why Sun threw in the towel in Mankind vs. Microsoft

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 09:07:47 -0500
From: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () frontiernet net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Why Sun threw in the towel in Mankind vs. Microsoft
To: dave () farber net
Dave,

With all due respect to Dewayne [ he did not write it, see latter IP note djf]
and at least some of the
engineers at Sun, I take issue with this otherwise great article
because of his continued and unnecessary bashing of Microsoft.
Do we really want Sun engineers to save the Earth? Puh-leeze!

Does Microsoft produce some mediocre software? Sure.
Has Microsoft suffered some sloppy releases? Certainly a few.
However, Microsoft (along with Intel, their manufacturer)
produces a fine computer that does a fine job doing what it's
intended to do. I'm not going to run a bank or an embedded
machine or a particle accelerator with it, but for 95% of the
other things we can think of to use computers for it's great.

Aside from the teenage Linux user forced to edit PowerPoint
presentations while working for "the man" in a large corporation,
I don't think that many people are being forced to use something
they don't like. Ironically, when I worked at Bell Labs, I was
the only Windows NT user in a veritable sea of Solaris boxes
simply because I could do more things faster with my machine.

I think Sun failed because of Sun. They themselves have been
guilty of mediocrity for far too long. Like Apple, they proved
themselves in the mid-1980s and then coasted into obscurity
today. However, unlike Jobs, who managed to turn things around,
McNealy isn't a visionary.

When Microsoft released Windows 2000, the *NIX crowd joked
that it would fall flat on its face simply because "Microsoft engineers"
couldn't possibly release 10 million new lines of code without massive
problems. The actual result, an operating system widely appreciated
and used by business must have really stung these people.

Then, when Microsoft unleashed .NET, Sun was left holding the
bag without anything remotely close. Now, growing companies
like eBay have kicked Sun out and have bet the company on
Microsoft on .NET because that's where they see the future going.

I knew years ago that this future wouldn't include Sun. Everyone
else will realize it when they're bankrupt.

Tom Fairlie
www.tomfairlie.com


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