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Re: IBM doesn't like the GPL


From: amicus_curious
Subject: Re: IBM doesn't like the GPL
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:32:47 -0400


"Alexander Terekhov" <terekhov@web.de> wrote in message 49C257E3.DAF22F81@web.de">news:49C257E3.DAF22F81@web.de...


And how did that help SUN?


The intent was to get the world's application developers creating all of their work in java so that it could be "written once and run everywhere" in an attempt to break the Microsoft grasp on the computer software market by making Windows unnecessary. McNealy reasoned that by killing Microsoft's cash cow, Gates would be unable to continue the battle for workstations and department level servers. Java became very popular for system integrators in designing client/server applications and might have someday done what McNealy intended, but he had a poor sense of timing.

The only real choice for client hardware at the time was the ubiquitous Wintel PC, which did run a java environment just fine and so the standard became a TCP/IP capable server, brand not important, working with a bunch of Windows PCs, brand not important. All that did was to encourage big companies to buy even more Windows based PCs which could now do additional useful things. McNealy was planning to provide a so-called "thin client" that would run the java applications, but he never got that out of the chute, so the whole thing backfired.

Microsoft, meanwhile, managed to thoroughly muddy the water by adding a lot of their own interface cream and sugar to the original java black and then managed to even create a sort of multi-flavor latte in the form of .NET. In a sense, this out-did the original java, termed J++ in newspeak, and today has totally blunted the original killing thrust attempt.

At the end of the day, Sun had spent a fortune developing and promoting java, creating a large opportunity for which it had no product to sell into. And the COLA folk like to snicker at Bill Gates' leading with his chin!

It could be said that the plan would work with Linux based clients today and there has been a little movement in that direction, but the real irony is that the company most damaged by the arrival of Linux has been Sun.





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