Without .NET, Java would've been the undisputed champ of enterprise programming, meaning Sun would've had a lot more clout than they did, and the need for metal

Without .NET, Java would've been the undisputed champ of enterprise programming, meaning Sun would've had a lot more clout than they did, and the need for metal that "runs Java better" (as SPARC/Solaris would've been sold) might've been much more influential. Once .NET came out, a lot of companies used that instead of Java since they were already familiar with Windows and the x86 hardware that ran Windows was much cheaper than SPARC hardware that ran Solaris. All this massively diminished Sun and Java's influence in enterprise systems, and caused the sales of expensive specialized hardware like SPARC to plunge.