Re: [cobalt-developers] nice knowing you all!

[Arthur Corliss <corliss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2000, Jeff Lasman wrote:

> It's gonna happen, get used to it <smile>.  The stock-premium was 40% at
> announcement time; though I look for it to go down, 40% is hefty enough
> so it'll stay attractive enough to enough of the stockholders.  Many of
> whom are employees, even top employees who were in on the deal, I'm sure
> (entirely my speculation; I have NO inside information).

It's not a done deal, get used to it.  ;-)  Everyone thought the Corel-Inprise
merger was a done deal, too, but thank god that fell through.

> > I love this quote
> > (http://yahoo.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-2814541.html?pt.yfin.cat_fin.txt.ne):
> > 
> >         However, in the long term, Sun expects to move
> >         Cobalt's products over to Sun's UltraSparc CPUs and
> >         its Solaris operating system, Schwartz said.
> 
> I figured out most of this without reading the quote; it makes sense to
> migrate at least the hardware.  I didn't forsee the switch to Solaris,
> and frankly, I still don't; I just see "Schwartz" as seeing a different
> future.  I see no reason for Sun to put Solaris into their low-end
> package while supporting Linux (as they're beginning to do) in their
> high-end packages.

Please.  Anyone with any experience with Sun/McNealy knows that they're only
begrudgingly supporting Linux.  The extent of their Linux support goes only as
far as it needs to go to keep their hardware (at the least) providing revenue.
If they can find a way to wedge a software license into that package, they
will.

> But of course "Schwartz" is Schwartz, and I'm me, so only the future
> will tell <smile>.

Schwartz obviously knows better where the company would like to go.  Now,
whether or not the market will allow them to get away with such, we'll see.
You may be right, but not because of any altruistic intent on the part of Sun.

> (To put this in perspective, in 1998 I announced that the next version
> of Windows would be an upgrade both from BOTH Win98 and from WinNT, and
> would be called Windows 2000.  I was called every name in the book on
> lots of newsgroups and email lists, and Microsoft waffled a few times,
> and Win98 has still to join the camp ["real soon now" <wry grin>], but
> it turns out I was right <smile>.  I have a good track record; I've been
> a futurist in this industry since 1980.)

<G>  That was a hard call to make.  It's not like MS has promised exactly that
with every rev of Windows after the original Win95.  Eventually they were
going to get it right.  Ironically, you're still wrong, though.  Win98's
successor is WinME, which is *still* DOS-based.

> > So much for Linux, eh?  That'll win you some friends.
> 
> For those of us on the developers list, possibly.  But we're an
> extremely small part of Cobalt's market.  And for appliance users it
> won't matter at all.  Do you really care if Sears changes the motor
> manufacturer for their washing machines?
>
> Oh, you do <smile>?

It looks like you've never had to administrate a large network of computers.
Well, I have (I run IRIX, AIX, Solaris, HP/UX, FreeBSD, *and* Win NT here).
For those of use used to working around the individual quirks of various
Unices, it's no big deal.  But for the low-end market, with little expertise,
it *is*.  No one wants to have learn the quirks of Solaris vice Linux just to
bring in new hardware.

But, then, perhaps you are all for constraining administration to a web
interface.  In that case, you win.   For those of use who do much with these
units than what that interface allows, we lose.

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Bolverk's Lair -- http://www.odinicfoundation.org/arthur/
	  "Live Free or Die, the Only Way to Live" -- NH State Motto