
Oracle Finally Killed Sun - bramv
https://meshedinsights.com/2017/09/03/oracle-finally-killed-sun/
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jph
Sun employee here. What killed Sun wasn't Oracle -- it was Sun management's
absolutely incorrect focus on selling hardware over software, and especially
over information.

Solaris, Java, and JavaSoft software were always treated as second-class
citizens, even though the tech was awesome.

Think of zfs, dtrace, zones, the jvm, jini, openoffice, mysql, and much more.
Great tech, yet sometimes the UI/UX/DX was subpar, enhancements were slow, and
critical bug fixes took too long with too little transparency. The writing was
on the wall in 2000, when many engineers left and the stock dove.

Sun was a great place to work with enormous creativity and super-smart tech
folks. Sun promoted "the network is the computer" and if Sun had chosen to
truly aim for this -- for the value of network information access, rather than
the sale of big iron -- then I truly believe Sun would be the #1 Internet
company today.

Thanks for the memories - jh@sun.com

~~~
chenster
> selling hardware over software, and especially over information.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion. Isn't that true IBM is in the same
boat? Somehow it manages to do just fine. Apple is also a mainly hardware
company with awesome software.

At the end of the day, it comes to management and leadership. Software or
hardware is less irrelevant.

~~~
pvg
_Isn 't that true IBM is in the same boat?_

It's not. IBM quite deliberately transitioned to making money off things that
aren't hardware - services, software, etc.

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appleflaxen
there's already loads of HN discussion from the weekend[1] on the simon phipps
tweet[2]

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15160149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15160149)
2\.
[https://twitter.com/webmink/status/904081073256243201?s=15](https://twitter.com/webmink/status/904081073256243201?s=15)

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jonssons
title sounds like a battle of epic proportions took place in the netherworlds
...

