I have a few theories--I'd love to be corrected. 1. "Cloud" basically didn't matter until we had widespread broadband internet access. Around the beginning of

I have a few theories--I'd love to be corrected. 1. "Cloud" basically didn't matter until we had widespread broadband internet access. Around the beginning of the 00's, that still wasn't the case for many businesses. 2. Consumers hadn't really accepted that the 'net was going to be a big deal, because there really wasn't a lot of stuff there yet that put them in contact with it every day--maybe, for younger people, Xanga or LiveJournal, or whatever, but the massive publishing empires you see today hadn't really formed yet. 3. Sun was very invested in workstation and server hardware, big iron stuff. That core business supported a whole lot of growth, but once Linux and comparatively cheap commodity server hardware became available, that core business got eroded hardcore. 4. Computers were still pretty weak, as were phones and wireless networking. Technology just wasn't primed for mass adoption yet.