Sun MicroSystem --What went wrong?

[Lakshmipathi]

I heard IBM acquisition of Sun fails.But i always believed Sun is *huge* IT player.
What made them to come this stage.?

One of my friend,Sun made Java as open source...so they are now out of business.

What went wrong with Sun ? Just few years back,There was huge demand for java professionals ???

[coopstah13]

Sparc architecture has fallen behind x86. The cost of sparc machine is too high, you can buy x86 machine for cheaper that performs much better. Open sourcing the JDK did not do it, they already had closed source JDK competition prior to that.

[bigtomrodney]

As I understand it, their business of using AMD CPUs for x86 wasn't really working as Solaris was still slower on x86 than on Sparc. I think the best thing they could've done was open source Java.

Now if they'd just GPL ZFS I might them myself!

[techieMoe]

One of my friend,Sun made Java as open source...so they are now out of business.

With all due respect to your friend, he's full of it. Sun Microsystems still makes quite a bit of money with their SPARC chip, licensing for Solaris workstations and servers, and the support contracts that come with all of the above. And yes, they still make money from Java. Just because the source code is more open now doesn't make them any less profitable.

Hell, the Redhat corporation's entire product line is open-source and free to distribute and they're making money hand over fist. Your friend needs to have this idea that "open source means no money" beaten out of his head.

What went wrong with Sun ? Just few years back,There was huge demand for java professionals ???

There's still a huge demand for Java professionals. My office hires Java consultants by the dozens for long contracts and has been without fail for the past 5+ years. The sky isn't falling. There's nothing to see here.

[b2bwild]

My opinion is.
Java is losing the battle for web..most to the LAMP.
People are just turning away from Solaris. dont know why, i never used it that much.

There may be still huge demand for Java programmers. but not in Pune or anyother IT hubs in India for sure..

[devils casper]

There may be still huge demand for Java programmers. but not in Pune or anyother IT hubs in India for sure..

You are right. A lot of my friends are Java Professionals and most of them are looking for alternatives these days.

[b2bwild]

However C/C++ still rulez without question..
Trend for PHP/Perl is increasing...

I think Python is a very good alternative to Java
But for most of the people using M$ softwares Imagine only of a snake (boa) when we say 'Python'

[techieMoe]

There may be still huge demand for Java programmers. but not in Pune or anyother IT hubs in India for sure..

Move to the US. There's still plenty of Java jobs here, and thanks to our lax government enforcement it shouldn't be too hard to get an H1-B visa. We treat in-sourced workers better than the ones on our own soil.

[techieMoe]

However C/C++ still rulez without question..

Not on the web. And I'm sorry, it never will. C/C++ were never meant for internet applications.

[elija]

Not on the web. And I'm sorry, it never will. C/C++ were never meant for internet applications.

The only reasons for that is that good C / C++ programmers are expensive and it wouldn't be developed as quickly. There is no reason that a web site couldn't be written using C+{0,2}- as long as you code to the CGI and let's face it, with the exception of assembler you are not going to get a higher performance or harder to maintain site.

The first web site I worked on was written in RPG IV, although later modules were written in ASP and ColdFusion.

Interesting times