Sun CEO On Razors And Blades 233
Kadin2048 writes "In an interview with BusinessWeek online, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy sheds some light on the company's new business model and future direction. In particular, he said that Sun's recent open source moves were part of a new strategy, where 'The software is the razor. The razor blades are the servers.' The move was called a huge risk by BusinessWeek, and it would put Sun at odds with the more traditional Microsoft-esque model with high per-seat or per-server software licensing costs and use commodity PCs and servers, which may not go over well with investors. But after having seen its stock slide and users flee for Linux and Windows, they arguably have little to lose. Perhaps the most interesting development to Slashdot readers is that in an effort to draw new developers to the platform, Sun is offering a deal that seems torn from a cell-phone company playbook: offering a "free" Ultra 20 Opteron workstation if you sign up for a $29.95/mo, 3-year service contract."
How DARE they do this!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sun truly is 'going the Carly way' it seems. Stripmining their credibility to 'preserve stock value' for a bit longer.
Looks nice -- but there's a whole Opteron Line (Score:4, Interesting)
But Sun has a whole line of Opteron-based computers.
Does anyone have anything good/bad to say about their entry model, the X2100?
Here's the review I saw: http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2530 [anandtech.com]
I like the idea that it is an off-the shelf minimal server.
Re:Bitch all you want. The Ultra 20 is incredible. (Score:2, Interesting)
The best part of a three-year contract is that the company is betting that it won't see that box again during that period, so you have some hope that it's built to a reasonable quality standard. There's nothing worse (computer-wise) than getting a supposedly great price on a piece of equipment, just to watch it act flaky (eating into your productivity) for months before ultimately dying decisively (eating even further).
I wish them the best of luck. They have good tools, and maybe they can make enough off support and hardware to keep going. I personally think they should charge some minimal amount for the bundle, as Apple does, just for psychological reasons, but if they've thought this through, then let's see how it works.
Re:Tomorrow, new Sun Fire Niagara with 8-core T1 C (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree with the "dumb devices" bit; that's too cynical. We can have devices at the edge that are only as smart as they need to be. This enables tons of networked apps that can relay dynamic information: news, airline flight status, and so forth. Increasingly, these tools are built into clients that aren't even web browsers (e.g. RSS readers, OS X dashboard widgets, cellphones, etc.). These networked apps make devices at the edge smarter (=== more useful), often in ways that a smarter (== more powerful) device couldn't possibly emulate.
Put another way, I could have a Cray in my basement -- but that still wouldn't help me conveniently find out when my friend's flight's arriving. The army of coders and blade vendors are still necessary to enable that application, despite a Really Smart Device providing heat for my house... ^_^
Thick v thin (Score:3, Interesting)
To extend your checking flights metaphor, I can do this on my mobile, my PDA, my notebook, or a terminal somewhere I don't own (not that I would). Each device is running something different. The mobile runs Symbian; the PDA runs WinCE, the notebook runs MacOS, and only heaven knows what the public terminal has, probably a Windows session.
At the core on the thick side is (statistically, anyway) either Apache/Tomcat, or IIS/something running the back end. Maybe Solaris, HP/UX, or something else is behind the curtain. Sun is trying to sell what's behind the curtain without thinking about the rest of the capability of the delivery system or the end device. Indeed the end device should go away or become something very uniform and manageable by their last perceived closed app, Java.
Yuck. I don't think that behind the curtain model works. Yes, hulking fast servers are good things. But divorcing what's at the edge is really very silly, unless you're a hardware server maker like Sun--- who provides none of those edge devices-- so in their minds they must not exist. These devices aren't embraced, they're ignored. It's egalitarianism through ignorance and hubris.
This is the same thick model they've been bandying about since inception, and failing-- except during the dot-bomb era when people just bought hardware for mindless reasons and irrational exuberance. As Robert Plant might sing, the song remains the same.... just a new stanza.
Sun is otherwise pretty smart, and smarter than Red Hat and SuSE when it comes to Unix. But they're also stuck in their own mud. McNealy and Schwartz should exit, and get a team that can appeal to a new and differently incented group of buyers. But their egos get in the way. They always do.
Servers are the razors also? (Score:4, Interesting)
Given Sun's business acumen the last decade, I expect them to start giving that away too. Not that I'd be happy about that. Competition is good, so competitors shooting themselves in the foot is bad.
Razors and egos (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in the 19th century, all men shaved with straight razors. Then in 1905 King Gilette patented a disposable-blade razor [about.com]. It was called a "safety razor" purely for marketting reasons. Its main selling point was that you never had to sharpen the blade — when it got dull you just threw it out and bought a new one.
And yes, they did sell the handles at a loss, and made it back selling the blades But that was just to ease market resistance. The product stood on its own merits.
It's an interesting strategy, it doesn't apply in 90% of the business models it's claimed for. I certainly don't see how it applies to computers. Everybody know about Total Cost of Ownership, and aren't going to be impressed that they can get a Sun box for free. If Sun is going to make all its money off of software and customer service, then they should stop making computers altogether, and leave the hardware headaches to others.
Re:Bitch all you want. The Ultra 20 is incredible. (Score:1, Interesting)
Sun nursed their hardware monopoly for too long and Linux came up and bit them in the ass with price performance. It didn't matter that Solaris performed better because the hardware cost so damned much. By the time they realized they couldn't rely on their reputation, they were toast. If they had done anything serious in the x86 market five years ago or so, a project like this might be viable, but at this point they look like SGI who, you may recall, came out with a line of NT workstations about five years ago. I suspect this will end up as successful.
Re:Sun's spiral of doom (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Thick v thin - "Behind the Curtain" (Score:2, Interesting)
At least in the telecom world there is a lot of that "behind the curtain" sneakiness that needs a lot of horsepower to make the stuff customers see work.
Just as an FYI, the digital world isn't all web servers talking to clients.
On the back-end B2B side there are seems to be more and more XML+HTTPS over private network links between a service provider (any service, think PayPal + X service for instance) and any number of external vendors. External vendors are doing anything from billing, to content delivery, to simply providing user tracking (evil, I know). The user tracking stuff is particularly intensive if you are doing network level tracking (X users going to Y IP that resolves to Z domain) that's a lot of packets to parse :)
Kisanth
But is Sun hardware good enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
But now there's OpenSolaris, and OpenSolaris is being ported to IBM RISC hardware at no cost to IBM. IBM will then be able to pick it up, polish it, offer support contracts, and provide you with a complete Solaris-on-quality-RISC solution, without a dime going to Sun.
I'm not saying it will happen, but it's certainly a reasonable possibility, something Sun should have a plan for in its business case. If IBM starts offering Solaris-on-RISC, how is Sun going to avoid losing market share -- and thus resources for further development -- to IBM? What's its differentiator?
In short, does Sun actually have a plan? Or is it in "We must do something; this is something; therefore we must do it!" mode?
Re:Sun's spiral of doom (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, Sun's Open Source credibility is increasing. Now that they've decided to open source everything, it will only improve more.
Only if they refrain from further schzoid episodes. This week they like Open Source and are ready to compete with products rather than lawyers. Next week, they could be threatening the Harmony project and making subtle patent threats. You never really know where you will stand with Sun next month, next year, or even tomorrow.
If they hold their present course and keep their mouths and their lawyers in check then we may see the improvement you speak of.