Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754
Message-ID: <1990Nov23.181851.26588@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <AGLEW.90Nov15214625@lasso.crhc.uiuc.edu> <1990Nov16.225515.494@zoo.toronto.edu> <ROLAND.90Nov19160821@lolly.Stanford.EDU> <6749@uceng.UC.EDU> <1990Nov21.174938.7861@zoo.toronto.edu> <6769@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 18:18:51 GMT

In article <6769@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes:
>>>I suspect that Sun realizes the only way to insure that it maintains
>>>its superior manufacturing is to expose itself deliberately to
>>>competition...
>
>>To be plausible, such theories should explain why Sun's earlier products
>>remain cloaked in secrecy.
>
>While I hardly claim inside knowledge, I have read commentary suggesting
>that Sun did not see its earlier systems competing against PC's, but
>rather as addressing a separate market niche. Two factors have changed
>this...

So why haven't they changed Sun's policies regarding its older systems?
As I've asked (rhetorically) before:  what possible end can be served by
the continuing secrecy regarding the insides of the Sun 2?  One would
expect secrecy about new systems but a more relaxed attitude about old
ones.  From Sun, if anything we are getting the reverse!  This is why
I suggest devious scheming or sheer irrationality as an explanation.

>>My prediction:  if/when SPARC (or S-bus) becomes a non-Sun-controlled
>>standard, Sun will promptly announce SPARC II (S-bus II), with loud claims
>>that it renders all the old stuff obsolete and is the obvious new standard.
>
>...I will be surprised if Sun tries to junk the existing standard, since
>it is trying very hard to build up an applications library for the
>SPARC...

They won't junk it; they will pull an Intel, announcing a new standard that
is a superset of the old one, rendering all the competitors' machines out
of date without requiring a total software rewrite.
-- 
"I'm not sure it's possible            | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
to explain how X works."               |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
