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Actually it does not make any sense.Solaris and the ecosystem was infinitely superior to anything out there (note: was). Oracle slowly killed it over time and d

Actually it does not make any sense.Solaris and the ecosystem was infinitely superior to anything out there (note: was). Oracle slowly killed it over time and did not embrace the change (like Microsoft did). If you have a really strong platform, technical superiority and you employ one of the best people in the world you must be in a deep shit if you screw up that much. Oracle positioned itself as an "Apple of enterprise software and services" but in a globalized world and the world of constant cost savings and outsourcing how can you justify buying a solution that only brings you revenue indirectly ? That's non sense. You can't only target fortune 100/500. You need to attract masses. Solaris was awesome. Sparc was awesome. But these are the things of the past. They should have attracted millions of Java developers to buy into their ecosystem. But they threw it away. They could have marketed Solaris as a better Linux and could have directly compete with AWS. They just needed to make Solaris bigger and popular. It was not that hard. They had better tech (eg zones vs docker) ages ago but they all threw it away.

lkrubner 10y ago
"If you have a really strong platform, technical superiority and you employ one of the best people in the world you must be in a deep shit if you screw up that much." Well, by that line of reasoning, all the mistakes belong to Sun MicroSystems, not Oracle. And you actually make the case for what Oracle is doing -- trying to be the opposite of Sun.
- holydude 10y ago
  Sun failed to monetize. Oracle failed to sustain the business and compete.
  - rad_gruchalski 10y ago
    What business if Sun failed to monetize?
    - holydude 10y ago
      Sun failed to make money. They had great products but failed to make money out of them. Oracle did great for some time (resurrected SPARC and Solaris) but they also made a lot of the great people leave (Nexenta, Joyent etc etc).
    - gaius 10y ago
      Sun commoditized hardware and operating systems with "write once run anywhere". Then they commoditized software with free stuff, such as OpenOffice, VirtualBox, etc. Then the music stopped and, having no consulting operation to speak of, they had nowhere to sit.
zigzigzag 10y ago
How was Solaris or SPARC awesome? If they were so awesome why are basically all modern companies that use lots of compute, your Googles and Facebooks and Amazons and whathaveyous, ALL based on Linux/x86? Even after Solaris went open source?
- holydude 10y ago
  Solaris did not go open source. Oracle killed open source Solaris long time ago. Google,Facebook and Amazon were big from the start and needed specific hardware and software combo for their use cases. Solaris used to host 99% of the internet then Linux took off and it was cheaper and just good enough. Oracle failed to catch up and lure developers and companies in. Basically what Oracle did was that it "refused" (meaning poor service and support even if you paid a lot) to work with non-fortune 500 companies. It's still being used in most of your banks,insurance companies and large corporations all around the world. Oracle considered itself better than others and failed miserably to deliver. Also a lot of really neat futures that got into Linux were built on top of the giants from Solaris communities. It's really a shame to lose all of this.
  - jen20 10y ago
    Solaris _absolutely_ "went" open source in the form of OpenSolaris. Oracle re-closed it, but the main line of innovation in that line of operating systems (arguably all operating systems) is still open source in the form of Illumos.
- baldfat 10y ago
  The past is filled with superior technology that died due to non-technical reasons. 1) Amiga (Seriously 7 years ahead of everyone else) 2) BeOS (Unless you used it and saw it you still don't understand why it was awesome) 3) Digital Alpha Chips (I had a soft spot for old VAX what can I say) 4) SPARC was awesome but you have to remember it was awesome over Windows, Apple Server (Um anything was better then that spawn of Satan) and the various other UNIX systems. Solaris lives on in spirit with ZFS
  - 10y ago

lkrubner 10y ago

"If you have a really strong platform, technical superiority and you employ one of the best people in the world you must be in a deep shit if you screw up that much." Well, by that line of reasoning, all the mistakes belong to Sun MicroSystems, not Oracle. And you actually make the case for what Oracle is doing -- trying to be the opposite of Sun.

holydude 10y ago
Sun failed to monetize. Oracle failed to sustain the business and compete.
- rad_gruchalski 10y ago
  What business if Sun failed to monetize?
  - holydude 10y ago
    Sun failed to make money. They had great products but failed to make money out of them. Oracle did great for some time (resurrected SPARC and Solaris) but they also made a lot of the great people leave (Nexenta, Joyent etc etc).
  - gaius 10y ago
    Sun commoditized hardware and operating systems with "write once run anywhere". Then they commoditized software with free stuff, such as OpenOffice, VirtualBox, etc. Then the music stopped and, having no consulting operation to speak of, they had nowhere to sit.

zigzigzag 10y ago

How was Solaris or SPARC awesome? If they were so awesome why are basically all modern companies that use lots of compute, your Googles and Facebooks and Amazons and whathaveyous, ALL based on Linux/x86? Even after Solaris went open source?

holydude 10y ago
Solaris did not go open source. Oracle killed open source Solaris long time ago. Google,Facebook and Amazon were big from the start and needed specific hardware and software combo for their use cases. Solaris used to host 99% of the internet then Linux took off and it was cheaper and just good enough. Oracle failed to catch up and lure developers and companies in. Basically what Oracle did was that it "refused" (meaning poor service and support even if you paid a lot) to work with non-fortune 500 companies. It's still being used in most of your banks,insurance companies and large corporations all around the world. Oracle considered itself better than others and failed miserably to deliver. Also a lot of really neat futures that got into Linux were built on top of the giants from Solaris communities. It's really a shame to lose all of this.
- jen20 10y ago
  Solaris _absolutely_ "went" open source in the form of OpenSolaris. Oracle re-closed it, but the main line of innovation in that line of operating systems (arguably all operating systems) is still open source in the form of Illumos.
baldfat 10y ago
The past is filled with superior technology that died due to non-technical reasons. 1) Amiga (Seriously 7 years ahead of everyone else) 2) BeOS (Unless you used it and saw it you still don't understand why it was awesome) 3) Digital Alpha Chips (I had a soft spot for old VAX what can I say) 4) SPARC was awesome but you have to remember it was awesome over Windows, Apple Server (Um anything was better then that spawn of Satan) and the various other UNIX systems. Solaris lives on in spirit with ZFS
- 10y ago