by guestblogger “Beardy”
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30 years ago, a small garage-based start-up created what would become the basis of an electronics empire and be recognised as a trend-setter so revered by some that it has created its own cult and tribe of “fanbois”… Apple Inc.
It made the twoSteves rich beyond the dreams of avarice and has led to a vast history of headline-grabbing events. How many other consumer electronics companies can boast a trade show that draws almost as many opponents as supporters?
Along the way, Apple moved from MOSTEK (6502) to Texas Instruments (68000) to IBM (PowerPC) and now recently to Intel (Core/x86) for their CPUs underlying their range of computers. They have released genuine ground breakers (the original Apple ][ and the Mac), some that have been years ahead of themselves so that they were market disasters (the Lisa). They moved from a hideous DOS (AppleDOS) to beating Microsoft to deliver a GUI OS (Mac O/S) to recognising that they didn’t do OS kernels very well, but did a brilliant job with GUIs and moved again (Mac O/S X derived from BSD).
There have been brilliant apps (like QuickTime) and woeful ones (like Safari, but maybe it will work by version 10…). But whatever they have done, their brilliant showman, entrepreneur and visionary (just ask him) has lead them through two recessions and successfully elevated the brand recognition well into the consumer market.
Roll forward about a quarter century and Apple took a major diversion from being a computer company that generated as much hype as real breakthroughs. Computers became less of a focus as the company took to the limelight in the consumer electronics market…. enter the iPod…. Now a few years down the track, they have successfully (deservedly or not) brought about almost a paradigm shift in mobile telephony with the iPhone.
And so we come to the latest step. Apple have guarded their technical IP with a zeal that make even the RIAA and MPAA look like charities, so it probably should be no surprise that they want to ensure that the next generation consumer products they create are even more closely guarded, no leaks, no “knock-offs”, no “clones”, not even any of the “me too” competition.
Apple are recruiting engineers and designers in the silicon space to design their own chips. Will they build a fab? Unlikely. Will they shop out the silicon fab work to a secure fab? Who knows, but anyone who has been keeping an eye on the manoeuvrings of “Global Foundries” and IBM’s silicon fab over on the US east coast might have some ideas…
by guestblogger “Beardy”
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hmmmm… Oracle buy Sun…. that’s a good synergy but a significant departure for Oracle unless they plan to asset/IP-strip Sun of it’s hardware division….
To the best of my knowledge, this is Oracle’s first foray into the world of enterprise hardware (or any hardware for that matter)…. will they try and continue Sun’s model for that division, forcibly impose the software business model on it, or just cut it out and sell off the division in whole or in part ?
For the software biz, it makes excellent sense…. First Oracle bought InnoDB forcing MySQL to change tack slightly to ensure “freedom”… then Sun bought MySQL… now Oracle buys Sun and gets MySQL into the bargain…. that gives them an extra stream in the DB space and more importantly buys Oracle some (not much, but some) street cred in the OpenSource heartland…. plus they get to push IBM around since Big Blue has such a deep involvement in Java, now Oracle owns the Java core IP they can make PlebLogic, oops, sorry, “WebLogic” even more entrenched over WebSphere with defacto endorsement as the owners of the Java core.
What this all means for OpenOffice is a good question though…. Oracle ditched their own ambitions for an Office-type suite years ago, but now they own one that does have a user base and a level of respectability. Will they continue a product in a market area they have previously dodged or will they put it in the “too hard” basket and push it out for the slow lingering death of an unsupported OSS project ? Admittedly, Larry Ellison (Oracle) has been a long-time antagonist of Bill Gates (Microsoft), so it is entirely possible that Oracle will see this as their chance to punch MS while they are against the ropes in this tight economic climate.
While some may disagree, grabbing Solaris is a huge bonus for Oracle…. let’s face it, “Oracle Linux” really didn’t convince anybody and naming their core DB product as “Unbreakable” is just an invitation for a beating…. With the acquisition of Sun, they have gained a widely respected *NIX OS in 2 variants (Solaris and OpenSolaris) across almost every conceivable platform. Oracle’s flagship product works quite nicely on Solaris on Sun gear, so this is a double-boost in the same way that DB2 sells AIX sells POWER and can deploy Java on WebSphere…. OracleDB could sell Solaris and sell SPARC/Opteron and deploy Java on WebLogic making for an inherent “single vendor makes buying simpler” scenario…. Of course they have to be very careful not to cause loss of OracleDB sales (and more importantly ongoing license and support agreements and consulting services)…. Never forget that both companies are now in the megascale region with divisions covering everything from bare metal silicon up to enterprise hardware and software and onwards to application development tools and consulting services….
The Register article makes many of the same points… http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/20/oracle_eats_sun/…. plus the important point I missed that neither HP nor Microsoft now can compete on the same full range of business solutions and services….
If Oracle can make the Sun hardware division a viable division within the larger Oracle portfolio will be the test of whether Oracle bought the company for the huge pool of IP and patents or whether they bought it just so they could pick the eyes out of it (Java, Solaris and OpenOffice)….. or as an asset stripping exercise to sell off the company in pieces to turn a quick profit… A hint of the future would be if Oracle decides to rebrand the Sun products as plain “Oracle” or “Sun, An Oracle Company” to leverage brand recognition…. announcements made 6 months from now when the dust settles will likely answer many questions…
As most businesses have chosen to stick with Windows XP over the two newer attempts at an operating system Microsoft offers, XP support running out today and no businesses wanting to install Vista or Windows 7 (Vista with a different skin), where does this leave our favourite anti-competitive monopolistic mega corporation? Add the 9 million euro fine to this and Microsoft might be a little bit annoyed at the state of play in IT currently.
There’s also a lot of talk of Microsoft calling in the dogs with licensing checks and audits to collect more cash in times of need.
So what options do businesses have if they want to switch from XP?
They could always just use a virtual machine of xp and restore the vm when problems occur, this will not guard against new viruses and bugs though.
Hopefully a decent chunk of businesses will switch to Linux for stability and also to save immense costs if they go with a truly free distribution like Ubuntu or Debian. The cut over might be pricey but worth it in the end. Also, wine (the windows emulator) can run many windows programs quite successfully these days, so legacy apps might be ok in many cases.
In better times, not switching was an easy decision, just pay the fees and ignore the issue. Now with a severe economic downturn, windows xp unsupported, no suitable microsoft operating systems to choose from, will businesses act to move to open alternatives and save their own butts?
IT labour is now cheaper to get large migration projects completed, as people are fearing for their jobs and will take more pushing around than they would previously. So extra overtime and cheap wages might just get the job done without as big a cost hit to businesses. Such large migration projects will get the tick from management too if large cost savings can be proven. With Linux, you have a double cost saving, stability with reduced support calls along with much reduced licensing fees if you go with a free Linux distro. Ongoing support should be in the form of hiring skilled staff rather than the ignorant approach of outsourcing.
With a good collection of open skilled staff, the sky is the limit with your company and Linux.
