[cryptonector]

> Sun never decided whether they were a hardware company of a software company.

Ouch. And actually they were a _systems_ company. Their storage appliance product was fantastic, and their UltraSPARC systems (the systems; forget the CPU) were also fantastic. Sun was the first systems company to prioritize space and power consumption -- they were really empathetic to folks who build and pay for data centers!

But no one seemed to understand how awesome their position was circa 2007 regarding systems design, and their advantages were allowed to fizzle.

Larry Ellison doesn't understand mindshare -- the very thing that made Oracle successful. He only understands lock-in. He doesn't understand that you need to build mindshare first. He's not alone in that. This is why Sun saw starts in SPARC when it was pretty much garbage. Sure, UltraSPARC was neat, but still way too slow. It showcased great ideas and execution, but SPARC was just dead, so what was the point besides an obscene waste of resources?!

[rbanffy]

> SPARC when it was pretty much garbage

I don’t remember that time. SPARC was pretty awesome when it came out. Eventually it was surpassed by others, but that happened later.

[sys_64738]

> Larry Ellison doesn't understand mindshare

Given Larry is the third richest person on the planet, he understands everything way better than us.

[rbanffy]

Never underestimate the value of luck and of being in the right place at the right time. Larry doesn’t have to understand everything - he pays people to understand the things he doesn’t. His main expertise now is with racing boats.

[sys_64738]

If that makes you feel better then good luck with that. I'd love to have his luck then.

[rbanffy]

Remember he bought Sun in part to be able to kill MySQL? I do.

[cryptonector]

Oracle was kinda sponsored by the U.S. government initially, IIUC (but maybe that's just conspiracy theories floating around?). They had the best SQL RDBMS for a long time, which created mindshare. Back then Larry knew better or didn't think of milking his customers, either way Oracle back then built customers and mindshare. Eventually Oracle began milking their customers. The Sun acquisition experience seems to bear out the idea that they are no longer interested in building mindshare, just acquiring products they can milk, then milk them for as long as possible, and let them die of attrition.

[mrcwinn]

Oracle is here. Sun is not. Sorry, what exactly does Larry Ellison not understand?

[cryptonector]

Oracle is here, but all new DBs are PG or Couch/Duck/WhateverDB. When was the last time you heard of someone choosing Oracle for a new greenfield app? It doesn't happen. No one wants to be beholden to Oracle. Oracle is just milking their cow and eventually it will run dry.

[rbanffy]

Open source licenses is one. He tried to (chuckles) kill MYSQL (laughter). After paying a billion for it (ROTFL)