The author of the "Open
letter to McNealy" has some severe misconceptions about the software field:
But software technology — operating systems, development tools, application
servers, systems management tools, and the like — all come with a major
handicap. They become commodities so fast that pure technological excellence has
little differentiating power.
None of these industries are anywhere near commoditization. If such were the case
- Windows would be free, as would be WebLogic and WebSphere.
- There would be no differentiating factor between Windows and Linux, they
would all provide the same set of services. Same for WebLogic and
WebSphere. - Open source software would dominate all these markets.
Even free IDE’s such as Eclipse can’t commoditize the IDE space, as
JBuilder and IDEA have been showing for several years now.
Software doesn’t exist in a vacuum. What drives commoditization is user
needs, not producers. And so far, user needs have constantly brought in new
requirements on all these software stacks, precisely preventing commoditization
from happening.
The author needs to read up on some basic business principles before trying
to patronize a CEO…
#1 by Christian Murphy on April 15, 2004 - 2:54 pm
The author may be wrong in general but surely he has a point about Sun.
I find it hard to disagree that Sun has had a problem with its sales, marketing and branding. If the alternative explanation for their troubles is a lack of clever technology, I don’t buy it.
Perhaps I can modify the original statement to be more acceptable like this: the market for operating systems, development tools, application servers, systems management tools, and the like has become _much more competitive_ in recent years. (It’s more competitive partly because there are commodity products that are good enough to meet the needs of many users.)
#2 by Rolf Mueller on April 15, 2004 - 10:49 pm
I think Joshua is partially right with his commentary. A petstore is not a SAP CRM system. And being able to develop a petstore does not prove that you are able to build a SAP alike CRM system. And what customers (ok, big companies at least) want are SAP alike CRM systems.
I do think though that Sun has with Java one of the best brands in the IT industry, and yet they are not capable of utilising it except for selling (cool) Java Mugs, Sweaters, Books and Certifications. Maybe thats their destiny?
Rolf