Among the many mismanaged IT companies in America, Sun Microsystems is perhaps the worst.
Since the dot com bust, this clueless company (co-founded by Vinod Khosla in 1982) has been tottering its way to losses and more losses and significant erosion of shareholder value.
Scott McNealy, he of the Microsoft-baiting fame, just couldn’t fix the company’s woes and had to make way for his pony-tailed successor Jonathan Schwartz.
Now Schwartz finds himself in the same boat. On Thursday, the company reported a loss ($34 million) and fall in revenue (down 0.5% to $3.266 billion) for its fiscal third quarter.
Even as other IT companies like IBM, which sell similar products, eke out decent profits, Sun Microsystems is at a loss to do so, literally and figuratively.
The only thing the Sun whiners are good at is finding excuses for their incompetence in delivering solid results.
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz complained Thursday that The U.S. economy presented Sun with significant challenges in the third quarter. Go back six years ago and you’ll find previous CEO Scott McNealy used similar words to describe a bad third quarter of 2002 - the challenging economic environment.
After the latest quarterly mishap, Sun now wants to fire between 1,500-2,500 employees.
We say, it’s time to fire all the bozos at Sun Microsystems, pull down the shutters and return the money to the shareholders. This company has no future.
It is time you [trash talk] shut this website down for good.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
It’s an introvertible fact that Sun Microsystems has been steadily going downhill since the dot com bust. Sun’s decline in revenues, fall in share price and losses speak for themselves.
Sun’s Revenues
Fiscal 2000 - $15.72b
Fiscal 2007 - $13.83b
IBM’s Revenues
Fiscal 2000 - $88.4b
Fiscal 2007 - $98.8b
We won’t be surprised if Sun joins the ranks of Compaq, DEC, Tandem, etc on the dustheap of the global IT industry. Sun does not have what it takes to survive. A company needs solid management and talented employees to flouish in the hyper-competitive IT industry. Sadly, Sun lacks both.
After Sun’s ugly third quarter, the company’s shares are already trading close to their 52-week low.
Sun’s Share Price (adjusted for dividends and stock splits)
May 2000 - $153.24
May 2008 - $12.64
IBM’s Share Price (adjusted for dividends and stock splits)
May 2000 - $100.02
May 2008 - $123.18
Source: Yahoo Finance
Fire the Sun management and all the employees and return the money to the shareholders before things get worse. IBM and HP are gonna make roadkill out of Sun.
“We won’t be surprised if Sun joins the ranks of Compaq, DEC, Tandem, etc on the dustheap of the global IT industry. Sun does not have what it takes to survive. A company needs solid management and talented employees to flouish in the hyper-competitive IT industry. Sadly, Sun lacks both.”
What gibberish? Do you even know what Sun produces?
DTrace and ZFS have no real competitors in operating systems technology. Solairs has technologies that no other OS can even dream of having. Apple and FreeBSD are now porting those technologies to their OSes because they couldn’t build it on their own. IBM has nothing close to those technologies in their Unix operating System.
A UltraSPARC T2 CPU (8 cores) handily beats the faster 4 socket quad core (16 cores total) Xeon based system in SpecWeb2005 while using 4.6 times less power than the Intel based box. Sun is light years ahead of Intel in the multi-core cpu technologies.
Got any real proof to show that Sun lacks talented engineers and competitive products?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You blithering idiot, you don’t even know the spelling of Solaris. And you dare come and blabber here about operating systems.
Do you know what an operating system is? Do you know the difference between a 32-bit OS and a 64-bit OS? Do you even know what a file system is? Look for some CliffsNotes on the subject.
For years, Scott McNealy used to drone on and on about Solaris at the trade shows. And we all know what happened to him and Solaris. As for OpenSolaris - an open source copycat joke that stands no chance against the Linux juggernaut.
You write above: Got any real proof to show that Sun lacks talented engineers and competitive products?
Go look at Sun’s numbers over the last eight years. Revenues are down, profits are down, headcount is down after multiple rounds of layoffs (good, actually) and the share price is in the gutter. And you still suggest that Sun is a wonderful company compared to IBM etc. Got anything in that appendage above your neck that you mistakenly consider your head, dickhead?
Ever heard of the term proxy variable? Sun’s lackluster revenues, miserable bottom line numbers and falling share price over the last few years offer more than adequate proof that Sun lacks effective top management, talented engineers and competitive products.
Smart engineers in Silicon Valley move to hot startups, Google, HP, IBM lab, the Microsoft outpost, Stanford, Berkeley etc. As for the dregs, do we even need to say where they end up? Look at the numbers put out by the ailing companies in the Valley for your answer.
It was for morons like you that Nicholas G. Carr wrote IT Doesn’t Matter in the Harvard Business Review a few years back. We recommend you read it before frothing at the mouth about the unique capabilities of Solairs (sic).
Scott McNealy used to say - eat lunch or be lunch. Guess what - IBM, HP and MSFT are now gorging on Sun.
You are over your head when you talk about the IT industry. Restrict your unadulterated nonsense to Hindi or Tamil movies.
Accept the reality - Sun is a mediocre company with no future.
[Trash Talk]
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Grow up.
[trash talk]
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Given the trash talk in your comment, you’d be more believable if you claimed to be a carnal engineer. Kernel engineer, my foot!
“Ever heard of the term proxy variable? Sun’s lackluster revenues, miserable bottom line numbers and falling share price over the last few years offer more than adequate proof that Sun lacks effective top management, talented engineers and competitive products.”
Really you claim this because you know what the products are? Could you elaborate? Please go ahead and show me the non competitiveness.
Don’t just point to the results and draw that stupid conclusion. Pull up the products of IBM, HP and Sun and show me where Sun’s product line especially their server line is not competitive. You made a claim back it up.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Sun servers are just NOT competitive in the market place.
Stop dreaming.
Look at the IDC server numbers for Q4 of 2007.
IBM grew server revenues.
HP grew server revenues.
Dell grew server revenues.
But Sun server revenues fell 2.4% in Q4 2007.
Does Sun even have engineers in its server division?
“Look at the IDC server numbers for Q4 of 2007.
IBM grew server revenues.
HP grew server revenues.
Dell grew server revenues.
But Sun server revenues fell 2.4% in Q4 2007.”
Why don’t you post the data from IDC. For Q4 2007 IDC’s report says Sun grew 1.9%.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Are you a complete idiot?
For Q4 of 2007, IDC does NOT say Sun grew 1.9%. IDC says Sun server revenues fell 2.4%.
Moron, learn to read.
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Overall Server Market Standings, by Vendor
IBM held onto its number 1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with 36.7% market share in factory revenue for 4Q07, growing factory revenue by 0.5% year over year. This growth was driven by solid performance from its System x and System p servers. HP maintained the number 2 spot with 27.7% share for the quarter, growing revenue 6.3% compared to 4Q06. HP’s growth stemmed from strong ProLiant and Integrity server performance. Dell and Sun ended the quarter in a statistical tie for third place with factory revenue market share of 10.1% and 9.3% respectively. Dell experienced 6.8% revenue growth compared with 4Q06, while Sun experienced a year-over-year revenue decline of 2.4% in 4Q07. Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens, experienced a 7.1% increase in factory revenue holding 4.3% revenue share in 4Q07.
Source: IDC
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Why do we waste our time with a dickhead like you who has a hard time reading and understanding plain English?
Stop lying, you rat. Accept the facts as they are, don’t manufacture them.