I spent four years at Sun as a Systems Engineer, much of that time as a member of a worldwide systems engineering group called the Java ACES, which worked with the Sun field force to evangelize Java.
I suspected IBM would "own" Java one day when I attended a partner event in San Francisco's Fort Mason in, to the best of my recollection, late 1999. Sun, Netscape and IBM shared the stage. I was surprised to hear IBM state that they had twice as many Java programmers as Sun did (including JavaSoft) and that they were scattered around the world in Russia and other locale, and developing Java 24x7.
I knew then that IBM saw the potential of Java better than Sun, who almost killed it. Sun had originally developed Java for set-top boxes and called it "Oak." Only James Gosling's personal power bought Java enough time to evolve and prosper.
Sun, despite its early successes in server computing, has neither the depth nor the expertise in client-server computing that IBM does. This is evident now that the Y2K and dot-com tides that floated all ships have ebbed, beaching Sun on a financial sandbar.
Sun's acquisition of Cobalt could have positioned them forward on the Linux curve, but its potential has been squandered in NIH (not-invented-here) politics, it seems. Meanwhile, IBM invested $1 billion in Linux development, not acquisitions requiring political battles and integration.
In a classic "innovator's dilemma," Sun is struggling because of its narrow vision of computing. It clings to a proprietary hardware platform, while IBM, nursing significant heartburn in the executive suite over ceding the client market to Microsoft years ago, is about to extract their revenge with Java and Linux.
Unfortunately, Sun, defocused by weak and half-hearted efforts in the embedded space, Netscape/AOL, Jini, Jiro, Jxta, Storage, JavaStation, Java chips, and its inability to leave a cash-draining proprietary CPU architecture, will be a bystander casualty in the crossfire. I don't think McNealy and [Sun Chief Operating Officer Ed] Zander even yet grasp the danger they are in, but they will soon.
Daniel Lord
