It Isn’t A Sunny Day

We seem to be writing a lot about Sun lately.  Part of that is simply that they’ve been more in the news, what with their problems with revenue numbers and stock prices, but also with the product and personnel announcements they’ve been making to try to make things return to sunnier days.

Two or three years from now, if we look back to the Winter and Spring of 2002, I think we’ll note that this was a turning point when how the systems business worked – who’s important, what their relationship is to one another, and how they run – changed in significant ways. 

When I say systems business I’m mainly thinking of IBM, Sun, and HP (we agree that HP has now absorbed Compaq, and we’re going to cease referring to them as HPC).

A systems business (by this definition) needs to sell to Enterprises (successfully) and needs to include hardware (servers/processors, at a minimum), software, and services (not just maintenance) to its customers.

That rules out, as you can judge for yourselves, software companies like Microsoft, BEA, and Computer Associates, who are otherwise deemed very important.

HP and IBM are doing well by this model.  A slip in a single quarter (or even a few quarters) is not the issue, but rather that the company selects a game plan that is designed to succeed in the long run.  This means recognizing the increasing commoditization of hardware, the complexity of systems and software, the need for expertise in integration, and the revenue requirement to incorporate services revenue from systems integration and consulting.  In this regard, IBM is further along the learning curve than HP, but they will do better as (and if) they can successfully integrate Compaq.  Sun, on the other hand, has a long way to go.

Sun Is Looking At Software

Recently, Sun has been announcing more software initiatives than usual:

Storage software to go with their new (but not yet shipping) storage hardware.

The rebranding of their portfolio of software, from various sources, but mainly from the Netscape via AOL acquisition to the Sun ONE (web services) brand.  Brands are a good idea when you’re trying to call market attention to the fact that you have quite a few products and you’d like customers to consider all of them, rather than just one or two but, in this case, we sense a more profound problem.  So far, Sun hasn’t gotten very far in convincing customers and analysts that it’s made the architectural changes that would be required to move its acquired products into the web services round.

On the other hand, in a recent conversation with Sun’s Karen Shipe, Product Line Manager, Sun Microsystems, we discovered that Sun will use the components of the Java Web Services Developers Pack, http://java.sun.com/webservices/webservicespack.html, as the foundation technology to web servicize its Sun ONE products. 

The Java Pack is currently a free Beta download which will go to general availability in June.  Elements will be added to SunONE products as they are re-released over the next year or so.  They will also be upgraded to J2EE 1.4 in early 2003.

The Java Pack is a one-click integrated bundle that includes:

	Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM) 1.0.1 EA2
	Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.2 EA2 (with XML Schema support)
	Java API for XML Registries (JAXR) 1.0 EA2
	Java API for XML-Based RPC (JAX-RPC) 1.0 EA2
	Java Server PagesTM Standard Tag Library (JSTL) 1.0 Beta 1
	Ant Build Tool 1.4.1
	Java WSDP Registry Server 1.0 EA2
	Web Application Deployment Tool
	Apache Tomcat 4.1-dev Container

It also includes a 500-page on-line tutorial which is also available in book form from Addison-Wesley.

So Sun does have plans in place to get to re-architected, web services versions of its software, but it may take a little time to get there.  We’re looking forward to seeing what Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s new Executive Vice President of Software has in mind.  Sun has never emphasized software – or marketed it very professionally, but that could change with some refocusing and the addition of a few key players. 

Coming Sun Software Attractions

In two weeks, we’ll visit Sun’s software again, with a review of its repriced and upgraded StarOffice 6.0 and comments on its WebTop server version editing software.

Is Sun Looking At Services?

We’d feel a lot sunnier about Sun Microsystems if we thought Sun had reconsidered its business model for the Services business.  Somehow we feel that with the recent reorganization – and a clear recognition that growth in hardware revenues is going to continue to be tough – that Sun may rethink the Services business.  We know that with her heritage at IBM, new Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services

Patricia Sueltz would be well positioned to do just that.

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