What Sun Should Do
Nov 26th, 2008 by sharps
Since first posting – I’ve added Open Office and Java FX – just goes to show – Sun have a lot of stuff.
I promised myself I wouldn’t bite; yet here I am. I’m contributing to the “Here’s what Sun should do meme”. And why not - I’m as good a keyboard-CEO as the next person and I did work for Sun for almost 9 years.
But first I should note – I think Tim Bray was pretty bold starting this (as he’s still a Sun Employee); and Sun is a pretty unique company in that it’s OK to do what Tim did (assuming Tim didn’t get booted).
#1 Java. I’m part of the Java ecosystem so it’s important to me. Basically, do what James says:
…, at worst go back to SUNW as a stock ticker.”
then do what Tim says :
As for Sun’s role as Steward of Java, and in particular the Java Community Process, let it go already. Java has mostly won and is mostly the establishment, and the community is smart and conservative enough to keep anyone from doing what Microsoft tried last millennium, or in any other way to subvert Java’s interoperability. In 2008, the JCP is costing Sun opportunities and friends and gaining us very little that I can see.
So I’d like Sun to set the JCP free, turn it over to the community, and when we develop some cool Java-based technology in-house, take it to market, try to make some money with it, and after it’s caught on and the bugs are shaken out, consider whether or not it ought to be taken to the JCP.”
But the community is going to have to continue to be smart and I also think that a consortium of interested parties would have to step up and invest some resources in making it work really well. Getting the balance of commercial interest and community is the key – I think Eclipse has it about right. Money makes the world go round – sorry if that offends anyone. Oh and while we’re at it – OpenJDK should be treated like the Linux Kernel – we only need one code base (note IBM and Oracle).
#2 NetBeans
I’ve used both Net Beans and Eclipse (not for a year or two mind) – Net Beans is better, more polished, etc. But it doesn’t matter – it’s not a sustainable product. When Sun stops it’s investment – it will fade away. Eclipse won in mind share years ago; Sun should have recognized this in 2005 – I did. Java needed something like NetBeans in 1999 to attract developers but not anymore.
#3 Solaris
See above. Linux has won. Whatever technical merit Solaris has today will be commoditized next year. The innovation around Linux is relentless.
#4 Middleware
Sun has some great products and technology; some that are popular and fit well with Sun’s demand driven model (eg. Glassfish) and some that make money (Identity Management). Figure out what you need to do #5 – choose the best available OSS solution and run with it.
#5 MySQL
Invest, Innovate. Hire sales people who can sell data-based solutions – steal $1bn from Oracle this year, $2bn next year, repeat.
Demand for storing, archiving, cleaning, replicating and accessing data is going to grow. Forever.
#6 Storage, SPARC, Volume Servers
Keep only what is required for #5.
#7 Open Office
I’m a beneficiary of Open Office – I use it exclusively but have never paid a penny. That’s the problem – I use it because it’s free and it’s the best Office Suite available for Linux. There is no business case here. Thanks for a great product though.
#8 Java FX
Drop it. Nobody will notice.
If this sounds depressing – I’m sorry but it should be clear that Sun isn’t going to be the company it was in 1999. It needs to adjust its cost-model inline with its Open Source strategy; it needs to be much smaller; and needs to do much, much less, much, much more sucessfuly. Even if Sun goes private.
Hi Rich, as for #3 (Solaris), why do Linux people envy Solaris ZFS, DTrace and similar technologies? If Linux innovates so relentlessly, why does it take so long to provide an answer to ZFS and DTrace? Also, Sun has quite a large revenue stream around Solaris… if you look at new OpenSolaris-based storage products from Sun (“Amber Road” aka Sun Storage 7000) you might understand that innovation still matters – OpenStorage is a fast growing and healthy business for Sun. And guess what makes it possible – ZFS and DTrace that come from Solaris
I do not see a way how to create such product with Linux with cheap disks – you’d have to get expensive RAID controllers and write tons of software to get the monitoring capabilities and analytics you get from 7000.
Btw I am obviously biased because I work on OpenSolaris. Might be worth mentioning that you are also biased given who you work for
For netbeans : the 6.x series make a turn in netbeans life, and web-oriented features are much more polished that in eclipse it’s plugins. Having your IDE supporting your technologies spreading it through it’s integrated plugins is, to me, the way to go. Think about apple’s appstore : people buy and use stuff because it’s here, just under a few clicks. The same goes for netbeans for the plugins, and it has a good impact on people choice in softwares stacks. Choice of your technologies is knowledge of your technologies, and that the start point for any cash income.
@Roman thanks for the comment.
ZFS and DTrace are very cool features – I just don’t think they’re game changers at this stage. Aside from some very niche users I just can’t imagine many customers choosing Solaris over any other OS (ie. Window / Linux) for those features alone.
I’m sure that the Solaris maintenance revenue is very nice – and I’m not suggesting Sun should throw that away – you have a 10 year commitment to customers.
As for use of Solaris with Storage – that’s kind of what I was suggesting – bundle up all of the cool innovation in software, systems, storage and win in one market (ie. my #5) – produce super-fast, scalable “data appliances”. To do this you don’t need a general purpose OS, or a general purpose middleware stack, or a mobile presence, or an office suite, etc.
I should add – my bias towards Linux hasn’t changed since I joined Red Hat – I’ve been a happy Linux supporter for the last decade.
Solaris is typical of Sun’s approach to building an Open Source business – instead of trying to monetize what people want / use (ie. Linux) Sun has chosen to continue to push it’s own technology but change the license. By doing so Sun has kind of missed the point – Sun is the sole innovator and the sole party creating the demand – that’s the traditional proprietary model. Sun still has the proprietary cost-model (true of Net Beans too) and that’s why I don’t think it will be able to make (enough) money from Open Source.
Regards, Rich
@Nicolas – I’ve never suggested that Eclipse is better – I think NetBeans 4.x or 5.x overtook Eclipse in terms of easy of use and shinyness. But if it’s all about being better then IntelliJ is the clear winner IMO. But it’s not about being better (unfortunately). It’s about sustainable innovation. Eclipse has the largest community and the cost for any contributing member is small than the value they get out – ie. it’s sustainable. Sun’s continued investment in NetBeans is not sustainable because there’s no revenue behind it.
Drop JavaFX!!! Strongly agree with you!
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#3: Suppose Linux really wins one day – who will drive development then? How many developers does Red Hat have and how many does Sun? Would btrfs or systemtap exist without Solaris? It seems to me that whole point of Linux’s existence is copying ohters…
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@peto – Linux is much bigger than Red Hat : read the following article to understand how many companies and individuals are contributing today to the Linux kernel : http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php
eg. Novell, IBM, Intel, Google, Cisco, Oracle, HP and when you move beyond the kernel – the ecosystem is even bigger. If any of those contributors stopped – Linux would continue to thrive. Solaris is only sustainable as long as Sun can make a profit from it (directly or indirectly).
wrt to # of developers – you are completely missing the benefit of open source – it’s no longer about who can hire the best engineers fastest. It’s about who can harness the power of collaboration.
i am not a Sun employee and i disagree most of your points. Solaris is definitely a better choice than linux in server side. Netbeans already kicked eclipse. JavaFX turned out to be a good technology. Ahh you are from Redhat..
forget to mention. Glassfish made jboss a bloated dinasour long time ago.
I am using NetBeans and Eclipse for last 3 years. I strongly agree, Eclipse is great in performance perspective i.e. extremely light weight. Netbeans is comparatively heavy, every body can’t use it easily, specially those who write software on average systems.
No comment about other points.
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