San Francisco (InfoWorld) - Stanford, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems president and COO Jonathan Schwartz on Thursday cited the company's plans to eventually offer all of its software for free as a way to build communities around its technologies.....
Sun currently offers its Solaris operating system components freely via open source. Technologies such as Java also are downloadable at no charge.
"We've been trying to faithfully explore how to deliver our products and technologies for free," Schwartz said. He made no specific statement about offering Sun hardware for free, however. Sun can leverage its software technologies to boost hardware sales.
Other software products on Sun's roster include its Sun Java Enterprise System middleware, Sun Java Desktop System, the StarOffice office suite, and development tools such as Sun Java Studio Creator. The N1 datacenter management offerings and StorEdge storage software also are in Sun's arsenal.
There have been 2 million licenses downloaded for the open source version of Solaris, Schwartz said. Open source does not imply that there is no revenue to be generated but that different business models are used, he said.
Overall, Schwartz was praiseworthy of open source. "Open source is having a [highly] productive role in driving innovation, driving down cost," he said.
In a comment apparently referring to Microsoft, Schwartz said, "It's going to be tough for folks that are keeping their technologies in a closed-source environment to convince [the market] that they're serious about interoperability."
By commoditizing technology, markets are built up, according to Schwartz. "I think our view has been that commodity markets are the best markets in the world," he said. Schwartz referred to markets such as financial services and telecommunications, where services are commoditized but lots of revenue is generated nonetheless. Commodity produces perpetual demand, Schwartz said.....
"I think if your idea of the software industry or even the computer industry at large is kind of snapshotted in the mid-1990s and you're operating that way today, you are without a doubt coming to the wrong conclusions and making a lot of bad decisions," Lane said.
Only three companies, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP generate 75 percent of the profit pool in software while fewer than 5 percent of software companies actually innovate, according to Lane......
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I don't think this is really going to make any significant difference. With a few exceptions, my limited experience has been that engineers don't like to be committed to proprietary hardware if they don't have to be. Oh well,....
Post subject: Re: Sun plans to make all its software free
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 2:21 am
The Man, The Myth
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:12 am Posts: 1080 Location: boulder
cltaylor12 wrote:
I don't think this is really going to make any significant difference. With a few exceptions, my limited experience has been that engineers don't like to be committed to proprietary hardware if they don't have to be. Oh well,....
Can you give an example of non-proprietary hardware?
Most engineers (foolishly) don't care if they commit themselves to any operating system, hardware system, or piece of software. Slowly though, people are wising up and understanding the benefits. Particularly in-roads are being made in government and education.
Open source is eventually going to take over the software world and Sun, like many others, are trying to get ahead of the game. Microsoft has been increasingly talking about linux for example (in a negative way, of course), which shows that it is worried.
I have long advocated at work for a single OS for our customers (XP) vs. the many we give them now. Sun, IMNSHO, may claim to be on the cutting edge, but has really lost it. They will soon fade the way of Digital and SGI.
Having no common OS ss like having a country where there is no common spoken language.
And I think the PS2 processor hardware is now "open sourced".
Post subject: Re: Sun plans to make all its software free
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:43 am
The Man, The Myth
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:12 am Posts: 1080 Location: boulder
cltaylor12 wrote:
stonecrest wrote:
Can you give an example of non-proprietary hardware?
Any PC's where (regardless of what was installed at the factory) you can wipe it clean and install any OS you prefer onto it?
c-
I don't know of any PCs that forbid a user from running a certain OS. Granted you can't run every OS on every PC, but that's only because the developer of the OS hasn't made the effort to do so. Even Apple's Macs, which arguably keeps their hardware as secret as possible, can run other OS's (like Linux).
broken_iris wrote:
I have long advocated at work for a single OS for our customers (XP) vs. the many we give them now. Sun, IMNSHO, may claim to be on the cutting edge, but has really lost it. They will soon fade the way of Digital and SGI.
Having no common OS ss like having a country where there is no common spoken language.
For your company's benefit, I sincerely hope that they never listen to you. Tying yourself into one OS, especially Win XP, is probably the worst thing you could advocate. Having a common OS is not the problem to the least, the problem is when you have to deal with proprietary formats (like Microsoft Word's .doc) that try to keep you stuck with their software. If you used open formats for documents, it wouldn't matter what OS or software you used.
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