Sun Upgrade Cycles

From http://www.cbronline.com/latestnews/...256d790018bb0b

>Sun Microsystems Inc is moving closer to the automotive industry's
>cycle of upgrades, namely once per year.

Is this a change? I've been waiting years now for new competitive,
buyable machines from Sun.

>"In the automotive industry they don't change a carburetor every
>week," McNealy said. "They do the model year. What do we do in IT?
>We change the middleware, the hardware, the software, the services,
>the database, all the time. That shows you how screwed up our
>industry is - it's more screwed up than any other industry, apart
>from maybe US healthcare."

I thought this was because the pace of technological development in IT
made frequent upgrades necessary to avoid obsolescence. Change in the
automotive industry is not rapid.

>"We're trying to drive complexity out. We're trying to get you to buy
>a system," McNealy said.

Complexity is a problem? I thought lack of competitive products was
the problem.

From the Sun web-site, I see they are still selling a 1.2 GHz Sun
Blade 2000 for $14000. As they have for many months/years. This is
a fantasy price. I've been wanting to buy replacement desktops
from Sun for almost two years and they aren't even in the ballpark.
No signs of life anywhere; moribund.

Do they even plan to introduce new desktops? When? Why is it a secret?
So no one can plan accordingly? Are they so unsure of their ability
to produce, they have to wait for the week before? Even Apple seems
to burying Sun in terms of ability to produce products and upgrades.
Numerous Apple "rumor" sites are excellent sources of information on
what's coming up (and it's always alot). But with Sun, all is
super-super-secret.

What is Sun doing with their time? Sounds like endlessly repackaging
software I'll never need, want, or be curious enough about to find
out what it is ...just more beverage coasters for the office.

Sorry, the article was just too disgusting to swallow without
venting, 'cause I get the feeling I'm going to have to start
migrating to LINUX, which is depressing indeed.

Bronco Nagurski wrote:

> From http://www.cbronline.com/latestnews/...256d790018bb0b
>
>
>>Sun Microsystems Inc is moving closer to the automotive industry's
>>cycle of upgrades, namely once per year.
>
>
> Is this a change? I've been waiting years now for new competitive,
> buyable machines from Sun.

Sure you have. Meanwhile, they've been selling billions of dollars
worth of equipment to people who see their value.

>
>
>>"In the automotive industry they don't change a carburetor every
>>week," McNealy said. "They do the model year. What do we do in IT?
>>We change the middleware, the hardware, the software, the services,
>>the database, all the time. That shows you how screwed up our
>>industry is - it's more screwed up than any other industry, apart
>
>>from maybe US healthcare."
>
> I thought this was because the pace of technological development in IT
> made frequent upgrades necessary to avoid obsolescence. Change in the
> automotive industry is not rapid.
>
>
>>"We're trying to drive complexity out. We're trying to get you to buy
>>a system," McNealy said.
>
>
> Complexity is a problem? I thought lack of competitive products was
> the problem.
>
> From the Sun web-site, I see they are still selling a 1.2 GHz Sun
> Blade 2000 for $14000. As they have for many months/years. This is
> a fantasy price. I've been wanting to buy replacement desktops
> from Sun for almost two years and they aren't even in the ballpark.
> No signs of life anywhere; moribund.

Get yourself on a discount schedule.

>
> Do they even plan to introduce new desktops? When? Why is it a secret?
> So no one can plan accordingly? Are they so unsure of their ability
> to produce, they have to wait for the week before? Even Apple seems
> to burying Sun in terms of ability to produce products and upgrades.
> Numerous Apple "rumor" sites are excellent sources of information on
> what's coming up (and it's always alot). But with Sun, all is
> super-super-secret.
>
> What is Sun doing with their time? Sounds like endlessly repackaging
> software I'll never need, want, or be curious enough about to find
> out what it is ...just more beverage coasters for the office.
>
> Sorry, the article was just too disgusting to swallow without
> venting, 'cause I get the feeling I'm going to have to start
> migrating to LINUX, which is depressing indeed.

Enjoy.

Bronco Nagurski wrote:

> From http://www.cbronline.com/latestnews/...256d790018bb0b
>
>
>>Sun Microsystems Inc is moving closer to the automotive industry's
>>cycle of upgrades, namely once per year.
>
>
> Is this a change? I've been waiting years now for new competitive,
> buyable machines from Sun.
>
>
>>"In the automotive industry they don't change a carburetor every
>>week," McNealy said. "They do the model year. What do we do in IT?
>>We change the middleware, the hardware, the software, the services,
>>the database, all the time. That shows you how screwed up our
>>industry is - it's more screwed up than any other industry, apart
>
>>from maybe US healthcare."
>
> I thought this was because the pace of technological development in IT
> made frequent upgrades necessary to avoid obsolescence. Change in the
> automotive industry is not rapid.
>
>
>>"We're trying to drive complexity out. We're trying to get you to buy
>>a system," McNealy said.
>
>
> Complexity is a problem? I thought lack of competitive products was
> the problem.
>
> From the Sun web-site, I see they are still selling a 1.2 GHz Sun
> Blade 2000 for $14000. As they have for many months/years. This is
> a fantasy price. I've been wanting to buy replacement desktops
> from Sun for almost two years and they aren't even in the ballpark.
> No signs of life anywhere; moribund.
>
> Do they even plan to introduce new desktops? When? Why is it a secret?
> So no one can plan accordingly? Are they so unsure of their ability
> to produce, they have to wait for the week before? Even Apple seems
> to burying Sun in terms of ability to produce products and upgrades.
> Numerous Apple "rumor" sites are excellent sources of information on
> what's coming up (and it's always alot). But with Sun, all is
> super-super-secret.
>
> What is Sun doing with their time? Sounds like endlessly repackaging
> software I'll never need, want, or be curious enough about to find
> out what it is ...just more beverage coasters for the office.
>
> Sorry, the article was just too disgusting to swallow without
> venting, 'cause I get the feeling I'm going to have to start
> migrating to LINUX, which is depressing indeed.


With Linux you will have another interesting situation:

You will find that Vendor V is using Kernel 2.4.13 to validate
their stuff with.
That Vendor O is validating on Kernel 2.4.16
That Vendor E does their stuff with Kernel 2.4.9
and that you Preffered Linux Distro is Kernel 2.4.20 or whatever.

Regardless what you do some part of the environmnet will
be unsupportable because there is no coordination between
Vendors O and V and E and H and I on which Linux to support.

You will be on the bleeding egde, going where no installation has
been before. Very few of the errors you encounter will be known and
resolved. It will take a long time to do the installation by the
trial and Horror method. The cost in Manhours will outweigh the
low cost of the hardware.

Yes I was briefly involved in an attempt to set up A clustered Linux
installtion to run a Database hosted on a SAN this spring.
It was a very sobering experience. At least I know what not to do.

Dont belittle the efforts made at SUN to make SoftWare work together
in a supportable manner. It is not easy to make lots of development
teams play the same game. This has clearly failed to happend on the
linux front lately.

//Lars

CJT <> writes:

> > From the Sun web-site, I see they are still selling a 1.2 GHz Sun
> > Blade 2000 for $14000. As they have for many months/years. This is a
> > fantasy price. I've been wanting to buy replacement desktops from
> > Sun for almost two years and they aren't even in the ballpark. No
> > signs of life anywhere; moribund.
>
> Get yourself on a discount schedule.

No, sorry, this is not good enough. My employer employs the FULL range
of sun hardware, from a sparc 20 to many Sun Fire 15ks. Sun Blade
1000/2000 is a terrible value proposition for us even with our best
discount. I myself would not buy another one even though I have the
budget already approved. It would simply offend me (as I have repeated
ad nauseam here). I actually do understand the reasons. A single CPU
for these machines is a big slice of enterprise server hardware, which
is never cheap enough to compete in the desktop market (unless you are
an engine designer at GE, perhaps).

An Enchilada though, now that is tempting.

Chris
--
Chris Morgan
"Post posting of policy changes by the boss will result in
real rule revisions that are irreversible"

- anonymous correspondent

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 02:48:14 GMT Sean Burke <> wrote:
> It _is_ really disquieting that the IIIi and systems based
> on it are so damned late. It was just supposed to be an
> economy-class Ultra III, like the UltraIIi before it.
> What was so hard about that?

The IIIi has some async (self-clocked) logic. The IIIi is SMP.
The IIIi has low-energy features. It's not just an economy-class III.

/fc

(Bronco Nagurski) wrote in message news:< om>...
> From http://www.cbronline.com/latestnews/...256d790018bb0b
>
> >Sun Microsystems Inc is moving closer to the automotive industry's
> >cycle of upgrades, namely once per year.
>
> Is this a change? I've been waiting years now for new competitive,
> buyable machines from Sun.
>
> >"In the automotive industry they don't change a carburetor every
> >week," McNealy said. "They do the model year. What do we do in IT?
> >We change the middleware, the hardware, the software, the services,
> >the database, all the time. That shows you how screwed up our
> >industry is - it's more screwed up than any other industry, apart
> >from maybe US healthcare."
>
> I thought this was because the pace of technological development in IT
> made frequent upgrades necessary to avoid obsolescence. Change in the
> automotive industry is not rapid.
>
> >"We're trying to drive complexity out. We're trying to get you to buy
> >a system," McNealy said.
>
> Complexity is a problem? I thought lack of competitive products was
> the problem.
>
> From the Sun web-site, I see they are still selling a 1.2 GHz Sun
> Blade 2000 for $14000. As they have for many months/years. This is
> a fantasy price. I've been wanting to buy replacement desktops
> from Sun for almost two years and they aren't even in the ballpark.
> No signs of life anywhere; moribund.
>
> Do they even plan to introduce new desktops? When? Why is it a secret?
> So no one can plan accordingly? Are they so unsure of their ability
> to produce, they have to wait for the week before? Even Apple seems
> to burying Sun in terms of ability to produce products and upgrades.
> Numerous Apple "rumor" sites are excellent sources of information on
> what's coming up (and it's always alot). But with Sun, all is
> super-super-secret.
>
> What is Sun doing with their time? Sounds like endlessly repackaging
> software I'll never need, want, or be curious enough about to find
> out what it is ...just more beverage coasters for the office.
>
> Sorry, the article was just too disgusting to swallow without
> venting, 'cause I get the feeling I'm going to have to start
> migrating to LINUX, which is depressing indeed.

These are my sentiments, exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you read my mind.

-an almost fed-up Sun customer