Free At Last -or- SUNW RIP

In December 1994 I purchased a Sun Microsystems SPARCstation 5. At the time, Sun was the leading edge UNIX workstation and the machine of choice for the serious UNIX software developer. The machine came with 32MB of RAM, 1.5 GB of disk space and a 20" GDM 20D10 monitor. The original operating system was SunOS 4.1. The whole thing cost $9400, net of a generous developer's discount. Over the years I spent thousands of dollars more in upgrades and add-ons -- switched to Solaris 2.5, bought a tape drive, an external disk, a new motherboard with a 70MHz (!) processor, more memory, and replaced 2 or 3 internal hard disks as they crashed.

In the years since I bought the Sparc5, Linux has gone from a hobbyist's toy to a serious and reliable commercial operating system, and the Intel processors have given the Sparc a run for the money. In 1999 when I had to buy new computers for my company, Linux could do what I needed to do at a fraction of the cost of any Sun. My Sparc5's role evolved from my main development machine, to a DNS and e-mail server and finally it was just a repository for a bunch of old files I didn't take the time to move to a different machine.

Several months ago another of its disks died and I didn't bother to replace it. The last time I shopped around, I found that a disk for a Sun cost a lot more than the same size disk for a commodity Intel box. I tried to figure out what to do with old Sparky, upgrade it again and put it to work? Sell it? In the meantime, I let it sit on my office floor, collecting dust. This was never a priority until I had to clean up the office for some important visitors. I looked on e-bay and found that I couldn't expect to sell it for enough to justify the time and hassle and shipping costs. But I did find a local outfit that recycles old computers and donates the salvageable parts to schools and non-profits.

So I restored the old files from tape onto the working disk, and copied them to a different computer. And I brought the SparcStation to be recycled. I had to take a cab because the oversized 20" monitor wouldn't fit in my car. After spending thousands of dollars on the system over the years, it cost me another $40 to get rid of it -- $30 for the round-trip cab ride and $10 to pay them to take the monitor. At least I'm free of the big albatross collecting dust in my office.

And this little story is also a metaphor for the state of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Back in the mid-eighties when I started my career Sun was beginning its ascent. One of its big selling points was that as a system based on "open standards" (like Berkely UNIX) it would be more economical than a proprietary system, such as from IBM or Digital (anybody remember Digital?). In the meantime, the meaning of "open standards" has shifted. Now, the commodity Intel ISA box is effectively the open standard for hardware and Linux is the open standard for UNIX. Both of which are much cheaper than SPARC hardware and Solaris 2.x. Yes, Sun invented Java, but you don't need Sun hardware to use Java. And Intel and Linux have done to Sun what Sun once did to Digital and the VAX. And it's hard to imagine how Sun will regain a position of dominance, or even stay independent indefinitely.

Back in 1998 a friend of mine sold his company to Sun for a lot of Sun stock. I recommended that he sell nearly all of the stock in order to diversify his portfolio, even though he would pay millions in taxes. I believe he took my advice, but I'm not positive. At the time, SUNW was trading between $5 and $6 a share (adjusted for subsequent splits). It peaked two years later at about $60. My friend had long before stopped asking me for financial ideas. Sun closed today at $3.11. I wouldn't expect it to see $5 again any time soon.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 31, 2002 08:59 PM