[ska]

The were good machines, but they were stupidly expensive a that time. The same with SGI. I remember being quoted $18,000 for equivalent amount of memory I had just put in a linux box of my own for about $300. Sure, it wasn't really apples to apples ... but still. Intel based machines were eating their lunch for good reason.

[joncrane]

They should have targeted a premium around what Apple charges for their hardware, not the absurd multiple they were charging.

[gumby]

Both sun and sgi had business models built around premium margins and couldn’t adapt the the mammals underfoot. This phenomenon is one of the things that The Innovator’s Dilemma got right.

Apple’s in a slightly different position in that they bank a more profit sun/sgi ever did and are pretty aggressive on COGS so if/when they lose their exalted position they will have a lot more room to maneuver. This is how Microsoft managed to survive its sag (decline is too strong anword) towards irrelevance and recover.

IBM was in the same situation as Microsoft but though Gerstner managed to right the ship, his successors were not able to re-ignite growth (to mix metaphors)