> ... leads me to propose that maybe pouring all of that engineering effort into ZFS and dtrace (while both are amazing technologies, I will be the first to ack

> ... leads me to propose that maybe pouring all of that engineering effort into ZFS and dtrace (while both are amazing technologies, I will be the first to acknowledge) --- perhaps wasn't a good product/market fit ... My understanding is that neither ZFS nor DTrace were the products of large engineering teams. And the market is enthusiastically receptive to these products. If they didn't drive adequate additional hardware sales for Sun, it might be important to remember that Sun didn't charge for them... Regardless, I think you'd be seriously misunderstanding things to believe that engineering over-commitment contributed in any way to Sun's death.