Unix's revenge

I was personally rather astonished to hear that Sun Microsystems and Microsoft had buried the hatchet in their long running war of words. This startled me, because I had become used to Sun being the only holdout in a world where Microsoft makes the rules. So apparently the Silicon Valley maverick has been defeated and forced to compromise with the giant from Redmond, Washington. This is a little sad if you are one of those people who root for the underdog. I confess to being inspired by the fabulous '1984' ad by Apple that announced the arrival of the Macintosh, the white knight that would do battle against the gray hordes of the (then) Big Brother and Darth Vader, namely IBM. Of course, IBM has become over time the respected and dignified elder statesman in the industry, but at that time, its tactics of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) factor terrorised all competitors.

I should also add the disclaimer that I own Sun stock; so I have a vested interest in the fortunes of the company. It is a little hard to see how Sun can make much headway against such established giants as Dell, HP and IBM, if it is to follow their business model of leaving much of the R&D (and the profits) in the hands of Intel and Microsoft. "Is Sun the new Apple?" is a question tech weenies have been asking for some time.

I wouldn't write Sun off, for it has come back from the brink before, but things may be different this time. Its business model, where it does all the R&D for itself, including in chips, hardware and software, may be difficult to maintain unless it is able to innovate and generate large margins.

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