Joe Data wrote: > On Nov 14, 4:44 am, BoD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Maybe they should sell all of their assets, EXCEPT Java :) >> And rename the company to Java, inc. >> > If you look at the recent Q1/09 results (http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/ > investor/earnings_releases/Q109_SLD.pdf), total revenues were > $2.99bln, and software revenues were $124mln or about 4% (the third- > lowest result of the last nine quarters). From an investor's > perspective, why wouldn't you close or sell off this "niche area" > where you actually give the product away for free? > > Sun always argues that free software buys goodwill with developers > which leads to more hardware and services sales. But it seems to me > this is wrong on two levels: In medium and big companies at least, the > operational guys define what kind of hardware and software they want, > and then the procurement guys either pick a vendor after playing golf > on the executive level or beating all vendors up on price. Neither the > operational guys or the procurement guys could care less if developers > feel all warm and fuzzy about Sun. > My theory on this:
Fat cats with expensive software to sell play more golf, at nicer places, and are more generous there -- and all the guys playing the golf understand each other. Free and/or open source software tends to assume that you like and understand software and are ready to get your hands dirty with the details. This is utterly foreign to most of the aforementioned //guys who play golf. A "do everything you need" /services/ offering which has a free or open source software component at its heart would seem to have a much better chance on the golf course. I am guessing IBM /could/ work this way, but they make the software in the middle of the deal expensive as well and still get plenty of customers. I think Sun is lacking the be-everywhere, do-everything, name-you-already-trust services arm that is necessary to pull this sort of deal off. -- Jess Holle --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
