Sun sales plummet 30.6% in Q4

If the impending acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle was meant to be reassuring to Sun's customers and to stabilize its sales, that sure didn't work. Not with revenues down 30.6 per cent to $2.62bn and the company posting a $147m net loss in the fiscal fourth quarter ended in June. After the market closed on Friday, Sun …

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't "wait and see" when it comes to Oracle

The "wait and see" strategy is common and exactly what Oracle is hoping customer's will do with their Sun investment. While people are hoping the Oracle purchase of Sun will be a good thing, history tells a different story. Customers need to be pro-active because a wait and see attitude will only put them in a situation where they are captive to Oracle's pricing. Oracle bought BEA and within six months increased the prices 47%. Sun customers can expect the same future as Oracle moves Sun from a negative $500M profit company to a "$1.5B profit engine in year one".

In order to prepare yourself for the price increases and lower support you should talk to other hardware vendors now to be in a better position after the acquisition.

Increases in license costs and maintenance fees along with the discontinuation of products are in the short term of Sun customers.

Two news articles every Sun customer should read.

June 20, 2009 8:20 PM PDT

Oracle quickly and quietly kills Virtual Iron

BEA bears the brunt as Oracle hikes prices

Colin Barker, ZDNet UK

24 June 2008 08:20 AM

Start preparing for the end of the Sun today.....Cheers

[amanfromMars 1]

Heavy Cloud blots out the Sun in Stormy Tempestuous Weather/Dodgy Market Conditions

Are we supposed to expect there to be an accurate correlation [XSS] between billings and sales? Now there's a ponzi novelty, if ever there was one in creative accounting ...... very Enronesque in ITs Skilling MO.

Looks like Larry has fluffed it with the Delphic Oracle Persona and Python, with the Blind leading the Blind in a Changed Market Place.

[PaulK]

Don't get our hopes up...

...I thought the headline was about that august British journal, The Currant Bun. I'd like nothing more than to see fake yank Murdoch's rag get blitzed. A great disappointment - they've been showing breasts on page 3 for almost 40 years, you'd think they would have progressed to at least hot lesbian action by now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't "wait and see" when it comes to Oracle - Buy Sun Now!

The "wait and see" strategy is common and exactly what Oracle & Sun customer's should do with their Sun investment. While people are wondering if the Oracle purchase of Sun will be a good thing, history reveals a solidified story. Customers need to be pro-active and buy because a wait and see attitude will only put them in a situation where they are losing opportunity to take advantage of Oracle's pricing. Oracle purchase of BEA is irrelevant. Sun customers can expect a future where Oracle does not penalize Sun customers unfairly on core licening as Sun moves from a near break-even company to a "$1.5B profit engine in year one".

In order to prepare yourself for the price decreases and lower support costs, you should dump other hardware vendors now to be in a better position after the acquisition.

Decreases in license costs and maintenance fees along with the increasing of new products are in the short term of Sun customers.

A news articles every Sun customer should read.

June 20, 2009 8:20 PM PDT

Oracle quickly and quietly kills Virtual Iron

(the newer Sun product is a much better fit than the old Virtual Iron, an example how Sun technology is being aligned into the Oracle porfolio)

Start preparing for the expansion of Sun today.....Cheers

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Don't "wait and see" when it comes to Oracle

These bits of competitive FUD make me think that Sun's competitors are more concerned about Oracle getting into the server market than they would have you believe. I would think that HP is the most concerned as they have nothing to compete with Oracle - except perhaps services. I would think that Oracle is targeting IBM with this purchase, however.

I wouldn't believe a word Larry says, but I can't help but think that Oracle may actually be doing what they say they are and this could be the beginning of a new three horse race, with Dell the odd horse out. It should be interesting!

[gollux]

Fare thee well...

Whee!

Sun, its been so good to know ya.

Sun, its been so good to know ya.

And that dusty old dust is swallowing my home.

I have to be getting along.

[Anonymous Coward]

What was Larry thinking ...

Of course, the stupidity of regulatory investigation is really killing Sun. Not that management stupidity did not try to do that for years.

Such a shame though, IBM is building a more and more complex chips tower of Pisa (pricing themselves out of the market), Titanium is not delivering anything (bet Intel and hp is waiting for the right moment to kill it off), Rock is apparently dead and we will be left with the sterileness of running windows and Linux powered systems on Intel platforms. BORING.

Oracle has a surprise coming though - what in the Sun stable, except for its hardware engineering, is actually worth anything or hasn't been released under public license to the world?

It can't raise the price of systems - there is still choice, it can't start charging for Solaris, - it is open, the other Sun products are all also runs, Sun was never a good services company, MySql will fork and the goodwill factor that came with the brand is fast evaporating.

Best of luck Larry, Jonathan - So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - only the smell lingers now.

[Matt Bryant]

Every cloud has a silver lining?

If this wasn't a recession, and Sun was being bought when their customers were at the peak of their buying power, and Sun then put out these figures, then you would be justified in laughing like a drain. But, it is still a recession, which means a lot of customers are not waiting-and-seeing from choice, but because budgets have been cut and purchases postponed. So Larry has a short grace period to get his house in order, but if the figures are still bad in a year's time when we're supposed to be bouncing back into good economic growth, then that really will be the end of any real chance for Sun's hardware lines.

For me, the interesting decline is in server upgrades - this implies customers are not seeking to lengthen the life of servers they already have, which is common during recessions. This is not good news for the Sunshiners as it hints that old Slowaris servers (and therefore guaranteed support renewals) are not being kept on but replaced with non-Sun kit.

I'm also not convinced Sun could have gone it alone. The necessary cuts would have crippled any development, and what with already being so behind in the server and storage market the hardware bizz would have been even more of a drain on the software bizz, and that's before you consider the damage of not having money for marketing. Sun's decline would simply have steepened to the point where collapse and a break-up sell-off would be inevitable. At least this way Ponytail can make a pretence that he has got a good deal for the shareholders and a "combining of two great companies" - LOL!

[asdf]

Matt is right about a lot but ...

>Titanium is not delivering anything (bet Intel and hp is waiting for the right moment to kill it off)

An HP fanboi is not much better than a Sun fanboi. The only difference is HP sells enough ink to screw up and survive another day. Nothing like one of the supposed highest tech companies in the world making its living by largely selling Indian ink. Its almost as bad as the largest advertising company in the world who also happen to possess the largest information store on earth getting away with it by giving the unwashed masses free web goodies <cough>google</cough>.

[Norfolk Enchants Paris]

I called it ages ago

Call me an Oracle, but I did pick this when the Sun/Orcale deal was first seriously mentioned. And AManFromMars may be right about accounting practises and so on - who knows / cares - but AC 21.18 may have touched on it when he mentioned MySQL. Damn LAMP installs must have cost Oracle a bundle over the years in lost Oracle sales, probably almost as pesky as MS SQL Server.

It's a shame as we'll have one less basket case to laugh about.

[Matt Bryant]

RE: Matt is right about a lot but....

"....The only difference is HP sells enough ink to screw up and survive another day. Nothing like one of the supposed highest tech companies in the world making its living by largely selling Indian ink....." <Yawn> Another bitter Sunshiner that laughed at that whole diversified innovation thing, only now they realise that what IBM, hp and Dell (and even Fujitsu) did right was also the main thing Sun got so wrong - Sun didn't diversify in time or in a well-executed manner. When Sun did, it made expensive fails like the StorageTek purchase, or the silly money price paid for MySQL. Ponytail would have killed for the extra development cash a successful line like hp's StorageWorks or the hp printer biz would have brought in.

Laugh all you like about hp's printer biz, but it turned in more profit in a quarter than Sun made in losses on it's whole biz last year. I'm sure that chip on your shoulder stopped you considering that hp stays ahead in the printer biz by innovation - if they just did what other printer manufacturers did they'd be swallowed up in a tide of cheap, Chinese copies. If Sun was such an innovation powerhouse, why didn't Sun ever innovate into new product areas successfully? Despite much hype, Sun is still a bit player in the storage arena, a fading follower in the x64 market (is anyone buying their blades?), and isn't even mentioned in desktop discussions (it's all Linux vs Windoze vs Apple, just look through the relevant Reg articles).

I'm sure the hp PC, storage and probably the hp software (remember that OpenView stuff?) biz figures also expose the weakness of Sun's width. Yes, hp's successes in other areas allow it to weather through the delays in Itanium, which means hp's customers will know this and know they can bank on hp bringing out the next gen Integrity servers, whilst Sun's customers knew just as well that Sun didn't have the width to keep on bleeding red ink whilst struggling to get Rock out the door. The difference? - hp's customers will consider waiting, whilst Sun's have already made their choices and are migrating away from Slowaris and SPARC.

/SP&L

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Every cloud has a silver lining? Lesson in Economics and Spelling

Matt Bryant - "the figures are still bad in a year's time when we're supposed to be bouncing back into good economic growth"

Shrinking GDP in countries like the United States and layoffs continuing (but no longer accelerating) does not mean "bouncing back into good economic growth."

By Matt Bryant's observation, GDP shrinkage in a nation means "good economic growth." If every person in a nation was sacked, layoffs would have ceased, and by Matt Bryant's standard, the economy would have "bounced back."

Matt should spell "business" and "pretense" correctly, to be taken seriously.

By the way, you spelled "Solaris" wrong again, Matt.

If this wasn't a recession, and Sun was being bought when their customers were at the peak of their buying power, and Sun then put out these figures, then you would be justified in laughing like a drain. But, it is still a recession, which means a lot of customers are not waiting-and-seeing from choice, but because budgets have been cut and purchases postponed. So Larry has a short grace period to get his house in order, but if the figures are still bad in a year's time when we're supposed to be bouncing back into good economic growth, then that really will be the end of any real chance for Sun's hardware lines.

For me, the interesting decline is in server upgrades - this implies customers are not seeking to lengthen the life of servers they already have, which is common during recessions. This is not good news for the Sunshiners as it hints that old Slowaris servers (and therefore guaranteed support renewals) are not being kept on but replaced with non-Sun kit.

I'm also not convinced Sun could have gone it alone. The necessary cuts would have crippled any development, and what with already being so behind in the server and storage market the hardware bizz would have been even more of a drain on the software bizz, and that's before you consider the damage of not having money for marketing. Sun's decline would simply have steepened to the point where collapse and a break-up sell-off would be inevitable. At least this way Ponytail can make a pretence that he has got a good deal for the shareholders and a "combining of two great companies"

[zvonr]

Oracle on Sun is faster than anything IBM has to offer

http://www.oracle.com/features/sunoraclefaster.html

What IBM, HP should be scared of is not Sun's technology, it is Oracle's sales force ....

[Matt Bryant]

RE: RE: Every cloud has a silver lining? Lesson in Economics and Spelling

"....Shrinking GDP in countries like the United States and layoffs continuing (but no longer accelerating) does not mean "bouncing back into good economic growth."...." I'm not saying now, I'm saying in the future when the economy is recovering. Some more optimistic analysts think we may see some good news by next year, which should mean more money being spent on computing kit. If not next year then all the vendors will be in trouble, but Soreacle probably more than the others as there is little chance of Larry turning his $1.5bn profit from the Sun carcass in a prolonged downturn, even with radical butchering, and a prolonged downturn will leave few companies with the extra cash to buy any bits of Sun that Larry wants to get rid of at a profit.

"....Matt should spell "business" and "pretense" correctly, to be taken seriously....." Really? Seriously by whom in particular, seeing as your opinion doesn't seem all that. I'm far too lazy to type longhand when I can use shorts like "biz", if you don't like it then that's your personal taste. But as regards pretense vs pretence, the latter is the English and correct spelling, the former is the Septic and typically incorrect spelling.

"....By the way, you spelled "Solaris" wrong again, Matt...." Nope, I called it by it's more common and descriptive name, Slowaris.

So, what profound insights do you have to offer around the theme of the article? Oh, nothing - what a surprise! Well, here's a thought to make you squeal - a rumour doing the rounds is that Sun's Sanjay Patel was only at Hot Chips last week to plug his CV, which doesn't sound good for the future development of Niagara. Please try and use English spelling whilst foaming in reply!

/SP&L

[Random Coolzip]

@Matt

"Laugh all you like about hp's printer biz" -- What's to laugh about? Except, of course, that HP continues to teeter on the edge of being a printer company that also sells some other computer stuff. Anyone still think Aglient wants to be associated with their former home?

"hp's successes in other areas allow it to weather through the delays in Itanium" -- Yeah, good idea to turn your chip design over to another company and let them tweak it. Especially when that other company won't fail if they don't deliver. If Intel decides Itanium's "no longer a strategic direction" (i.e., their supplier agreements expire), HP's going to have to go hat in hand to IBM and beg for a little Power pie. Too bad they let Alpha die, they might at least have had a fall-back position there.

"hp's customers will consider waiting" [for Itanium] -- HP themselves already gave up on Itanium as a workstation-class chip, how much longer before they drop it entirely? I see SGI's moving to x86 chips for their next generation of systems, Dell dropped out early, Microsoft walked away -- who's left (that matters)?

"Slowaris" -- Rummaging around in the bottom of the bag, are we? I haven't heard anyone complain about Solaris performance since Solaris 8 came out. It's a lot quicker than Windows Server on the same hardware; which may not seem like a feat, but it's quite a shock to a lot of the middle-tier shops I work with.

[Kebabbert]

@Random Coolzip

"Slowaris" -- Rummaging around in the bottom of the bag, are we? I haven't heard anyone complain about Solaris performance since Solaris 8 came out. It's a lot quicker than Windows Server on the same hardware; which may not seem like a feat, but it's quite a shock to a lot of the middle-tier shops I work with."

Why bother addressing that FUDer? That FUDer has numerous times showed that he lies a lot. For instance, when he falsely claim that Niagara suffers from a small cache - how can the Niagara kill the Power6 in certain server work loads if it were true? Ergo, it is not true. Ergo, he lies and FUDs. He has shown numerous times that he knows nothing about technology, for instance he is convinced that a CPU cache can fit in a server workload with thousands of client's data sets, the Unix kernel, all the different applications that run, etc. That is just ignorant to believe, what is worse, he doesnt understand if you try to explain that he is wrong. 12-24 MB cache will never suffice. It is proven that he lies and FUDs.

[Matt Bryant]

RE: @Matt & RE: @Random Coolzip

RE: @Matt

LOL, you can always get at least one rabid Sunshiner to bite!

".....Except, of course, that HP continues to teeter on the edge of being a printer company that also sells some other computer stuff....." Yeah, stuff like being a leading PC vendpr, the leading enterprise UNIX vendor, the leading disk storage vendor, etc, etc. Oh, and hp are still turning a profit, unlike Sun, for years. Maybe Sun should have tried to be more of a printer business!

"....Especially when that other company won't fail if they don't deliver...." True, Intel won't fail, but then neither would hp seeing as the company isn't dependant on just the one product line. But then, Intel has used Itanium and Xeon as a pincer to crush SPARC and keep the pressure on Power. And whilst Sun is out of the game, Intel still need to keep the pressure on Power, so they have every reason to keep on making Itanium.

".....HP themselves already gave up on Itanium as a workstation-class chip...." Because hp's Xeon workstations were doing what the customer's wanted for a lower price. So hp switched customers to the Xeon workstations, carried on making profits, and concentrated Itanium on the server range and taking more enterprise marketshare from Sun.

"....Microsoft walked away..." Since when? Ever heard of Windows Server 2008? It comes in an Itanium flavour, along with MS SQL 2008. As does fully-supported versions of OpenVMS, RHEL, SLES and hp-ux. Please note that no-one bothers to make a version of a commercial-supported OS other than Slowaris for T2+, and nobody ever bothered to for UltraSPANK'd. No, Sun had to go buy an x64 line to add Linux and Windows to their server range.

".....who's left (that matters)?...." Well, hp for a start, being the leading enterprise UNIX vendor I'd say they counted quite a lot.

"....I haven't heard anyone complain about Solaris performance since Solaris 8 came out...." I have. It must be that I talk to a lot more people working in the enterprise arena.

RE: Kebabbert

Someone call a waaaaaaahmbulance for this crybaby!

/SP&L

[Anonymous Coward]

@Matt

Matt, please read first:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/02/idc_q2_2009_server_nums/

"Well, hp for a start, being the leading enterprise UNIX vendor I'd say they counted quite a lot."

We don't see where HP leads in the UNIX space, only in your head I suppose.

Numbers show HP in 3rd position and loosing share!

Please come back to 2009 Matt, you are using 2000 data

Regards!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RE: @Matt & RE: @Random Coolzip

Matt, we are back to whether you are lying, ignorant, or just stupid. The most current IDC numbers show HP losing market share in the whole server market almost as fast as Sun, but we all know why Sun lost market share. Why not explain to us all why HP is losing market share so fast. I could tell you, but you would just whimper.

Also, Sun owns more of the Unix market (still) than HP... How is HP gaining market share again?

Go put your head back in the sand (G version)...

[asdf]

just for record

I actually have worked with AIX, Solaris, Linux, BSDs and even QNX about evenly in work career (so not a sunshiner) but to be honest I actually like all variaties of *nix far more than Winblows ("we are a windows shop is that ok", click dial tone). I am actually a little bummed to see any of them disappear but alas Sun brought this on themselves. It sounds like I might be one of the few in here that didn't make big company purchases betting my reputation on one company or another. That might explain the fanboism lol. I guess blowing $300 to 12 yo kid on a game console and risk of picking the next sega master system is the same as a 1+ million plus dollar investment to a 50 yo IT pro. Nope I am just a Unix geek programmer that likes fanning the flames. Still Matt HP is great and all but itanium has been a sorry joke and turd forever and whoa will be the day when HP finally gives up on the next big thing. Look for my post then.

[Anonymous Coward]

don't be nieve about Oracle

Don't "wait and see" when it comes to Oracle - Buy Sun Now! #

By Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 31st August 2009 15:56 GMT

Welcome

The "wait and see" strategy is common and exactly what Oracle & Sun customer's should do with their Sun investment. While people are wondering if the Oracle purchase of Sun will be a good thing, history reveals a solidified story. Customers need to be pro-active and buy because a wait and see attitude will only put them in a situation where they are losing opportunity to take advantage of Oracle's pricing.

===> who has ever dealt with Oracle and seen lower prices or more value for their dollar? NOT

Oracle purchase of BEA is irrelevant.

====> its no irrelevant, it shows you how Oracle operates...how the F' is Oracle going to get from -$500M to +$1.5B in one year?????

Sun customers can expect a future where Oracle does not penalize Sun customers unfairly on core licening as Sun moves from a near break-even company to a "$1.5B profit engine in year one".

=====> Oracle has been unfair to Sun customers since year 2000, why would this change to try to sell some low margin hardware? It's all about protecting the maintenance stream

In order to prepare yourself for the price decreases and lower support costs, you should dump other hardware vendors now to be in a better position after the acquisition.

====> wow...do you know a different Oracle than we know? Their audits are worse than rectal exams.

Decreases in license costs and maintenance fees along with the increasing of new products are in the short term of Sun customers.

===> SPARC is dead...either under Oracle or whoever might buy the sheet

A news articles every Sun customer should read.

June 20, 2009 8:20 PM PDT

Oracle quickly and quietly kills Virtual Iron

(the newer Sun product is a much better fit than the old Virtual Iron, an example how Sun technology is being aligned into the Oracle porfolio)

but it...dump it...steal the patents...its good for customers?????

Start preparing for the expansion of Sun today.....Cheers

Cheers from the UK....dont' get f'd by Oracle

[Matt Bryant]

How Larry plans to make his $1.5bn profit

Larry's plan is for hp to take the whole Sun hardware bizz off his hands. Larry offloads the cost of making the hardware and supporting it, but gets to keep making money from Java, MySQL and Slowaris licensing. By flogging off the hardware problem to hp, Larry gets to keep his promise that he wouldn't kill Sun' hardware bizz (hp will instead). In return, hp gets a comfy deal that means hp makes the servers for Slowaris (ProLiants) and all the storage hardware for Oracle's next gen Oracle Database Machine, all for $1bn tops, with Larry making the rest of his $1.5bn by licensing MySQL and jacking up Slowaris support. As regards T3, Niagara tech is supposedly "open-source", but no-one will bother with it if Oracle offloads it in name to hp, and hp will simply kill it, especially if that means Fujitsu doesn't get it.

And for all you Sunshiner's that are going to squeal and scream how that just can't be true, that was the original Oracle plan - Larry asked hp to take the Sun hardware last year, it was only when hp fell over laughing at the price Ponytail wanted that Larry went it alone. Oracle has never had a plan for the Sun hardware other than sell it on.

/SP&L

[Matt the Shaolin Munkee!]

Choke on it HP Fanboy....

http://www.oracle.com/features/suncustomers.html "We're in it to win it"

Thats according to your mate Larry, not very good judgement there Mr Bryant. SP&L? Blushing perhaps from being such an arse.

Here's a prediction for you, I bet you'll continue to post thousand line long responses that deviate from everything discussed in the prior posts whenever the going gets sticky on any of your speculative posts. You always do, fancy a wager?

Well done Matt, a perfect demonstration the amount of FUD you distribute. How is life as a HP sales rep?

[David Halko]

RE: How Larry plans to make his $1.5bn profit

Matt Bryant Posted Monday 7th September 2009 17:23 GMT, "Larry's plan is for hp to take the whole Sun hardware bizz off his hands."

http://www.oracle.com/features/suncustomers.html

It appears Matt is wrong.