McNealy Created Millions of Jobs? 363
cahiha writes "In his blog, Jonathan Schwartz argues that Scott McNealy is single-handedly responsible for making network computing a reality. His timeline is something like that in 1992, the industry was focused on 'Chicago' (Windows 95), while McNealy bravely went his own way-- 'the network is the computer.' He goes on to claim that 'There is no single individual who has created more jobs around the world than [Scott McNealy]. [...] I'm not talking hundreds or thousands of jobs, I'm talking millions.' I have trouble following his argument: client/server computing and distributed computing were already widely available and widely used in the early 1990s. The defining applications of the emerging Internet were, not Java, but Apache, Netscape, and Perl. Sun's biggest response to Chicago was to attempt to establish Java as the predominant desktop application delivery platform, something they have not succeeded at so far. So, what do you think: is Schwartz right in giving credit to McNealy for creating
'millions' of jobs? Or has Sun been a company on the decline since the mid-1990s, only temporarily buoyed by the Internet bubble?"
Keeping Java Closed (Score:1, Interesting)
hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
I would say he gets credit for a good product at a good price point when and where it was needed and that did help the economy.
Repackaged Sun Machines (Score:2, Interesting)
Feh. Fuck that. (Score:1, Interesting)
Linus Torvalds.
I'm sorry, no contest Schwartzy. Your little cottage-industry has created literally squat in the face of the real innovator, and leader of the Free world.
'There is no single individual who has created more jobs around the world than [Scott McNealy].
Excuse me!???!
Jesus, that guy has a man-crush for McNealy or something. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Just think about all the jobs and companies that exist today because Linus built the OS that could. For Every embedded device that uses Linux, for every company that spits out yet another distribution, every hosting company that uses it--hell, How many people did Microsoft need to hire, just to compete?
Not really SELF-aggrandizing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it's not really self-aggrandizing. McNealy didn't say it himself; it was said to him by an employee buttering him up after some bad press.
I don't agree with the conclusion either. Honestly, the article itself even admits that no one was listening to McNealy when he was pushing the whole "the network is the computer" idea. Everyone saw it as a transparent bid to get people to buy expensive servers and expensive dumb workstations as part of the repeatedly "next thing" thin-client model.
Even today when people spend 90% of their time on their PCs surfing the web, checking email, etc., the network isn't the computer. Applications are all still hosted on the local machine with the exception of webmail clients. There's a growing industry of AJAX-based application services websites, but they haven't come to dominate yet, and they're over 10 years too late and way too different from Sun's marketed model for McNealy to claim any credit anymore than Jules Verne could take credit for us finally going to the moon.
Re:Feh. Fuck that. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I do.
No single person stands alone. Linus would have remained in obscurity if the GNU project hadn't existed, and also if Minix hadn't existed. And neither of those projects stood alone either.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsofts sucess owes more to them squeezing out competitors/partners than anything to do with providing a low cost client. Take a look at the litigation page on Groklaw to see what they are really good at. Remember this is a company who altered Outlook to block a web greeting card company when they wouldn't sell out to them.
The main reason you don't see thin client is because MS supressed the development of Java and reinvented most of its functionality in dotNET.
Despite so many online and network applications, many business users need to function offline.
A medium sized PC running groupware supplying 10/15 diskless clients would be a lot more cost effective to the small company that Windows on each desktop. Remember Novell netware.
Java is also quite a moot point nowadays. The write once run anywhere model maybe a factor on the server side; however, on the client side for enterprise customers simply not an issue. What enterprise customers run multiple client platforms successfully? Few and at what cost?
It isn't a matter of having multiple clients. How is it not an issue. You update a single application on the server and the clients don't need to be each visited in turn. Remember the fiasco here recently when the department of works and pensions tried to upgrade all their desktops remotely and it failed.
Why can't I go into a shop and buy a $200.00 dollar netPC plug it in and it works. When I buy a DVD player I know it will play any DVD from any supplier regardless of who made it. Why don't the same economy apply in the PC market. Why a monoculture. Well we all know the answer to that don't we.
If anyone should be rewarded for providing millions of jobs for the world, it should be Bill Gates
You're kidding aren't you. What millions of jobs. A few hundred developers in Redmond yes. Some CD factory in China turning out CDs for 0.5p a go. IT is a drain on a companies budget. A business should be working to spend less on IT not more. You could also count the cost in lost productivity to endlessly managing Windows. Someone who works in providing medical equipment told me they spend a fifth of their budget per year on Windows licenses.
-If software and hardware all worked perfectly, I'd be without a job.
If other business were as reliable as 'software' planes would be falling out of the sky, engines would fall off cars and fridges would explode. And people would take this as normal.
ref: outage kills 80,000 PCs http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/26/dwp_netwo
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page
The real innovators (Score:3, Interesting)
And, if I remember correctly, Digital Equipment Corp. (remember them?) coined "the network is the computer" not SUN.
Re:Credit for millions of jobs?? (Score:5, Interesting)
You kind of lost all credibility... BSDs and Memory Protection are for the most part not related. The only Memory protection errors creating BSDs were in device drivers, the user application model on even Win95 (the hybrid it was) was protected memory.
Windows NT going back to 1992 also has full memory protection, a concept that MS actually did work on the improvement of the technology.
As for MS copying everything, explain a few things. The NT Kernel, nothing existed like it, and nothing since is like it either. Or how about selecting a word and changing the font, you know select and modify that exists in every GUI. It didn't exist prior to MS Word cira 198x, but now you see it used in almost every application and OS. There are literally thousands of things like this that MS was the 'creator/innovator' of, even if you choose to have a revisionist history.
What has Microsoft copied that everyone thinks is a 'copy' of something?
The GUI? Well, Apple and XWindows both copied this from Xerox, as well as Microsoft. Every major OS made now is a copy of the Xerox technology, so how is Microsoft different here?
Windows? It is based on the NT OS technology, something that is unique from both *nix and other OS/Kernel technologies at the time and since. There is nothing like it. It is a client/server kernel technology, not a monolithic or microkernel.
What else has Microsoft copied? The WinAPI, nope, they created it from scratch, the GDI/GDI+, nope again they created it, RTF - kind of a copy, but the document independance was new at the time and MS gave the RTF specs away. XHTML? Nope they were one of the main designers behind it as well.
What else could it be that I hear people refer to all the time that they copied?
Well there is techology like Visual Basic, which had a new GUI IDE model, but Microsoft basically made the creators rich (instead of just stealing their ideas) and bought them out.
MS technologies are actually 'less' copied than Applications and OSes. MS Word was NEVER a copy of Wordperfect, in fact by 1992, Wordperfect was scrambling to copy the concepts that had been successful in MS Word on the Mac for years.
Now should we put the same eye of scrutiny to Apple or even Linux? Linux was a monolithic copy of Minix, and even its technologies and microkernel design go back to what 1983, and if you follow the *nix concepts back to the 1960s.
OSX? The core OS technology Apple advertises that they copied the technology. It is a BSD based interface to a Mach kernel, almost a direct copy in fact of the source. How about even looking at the GUI in OSX? They use PDF/Display Postcript (licensed from Adobe - not their creation), for 3D composition they use OpenGL, which again they were not even a significant contributor to the project. It was SGI technology and later work into moving it to a gaming acceleration API was work done directly BY MICROSOFT.
Kind of fun to realize the OpenGL stuff OSX and all the 'open source' projects use has MS created code in it, but of course MS is the great innovation copier.
Keep repeating the
How about even instead of listening to me, you go look this up instead of just assuming MS is what others tell you it is.
Sun's Greatest Hits (Score:3, Interesting)
Their greatest failure is not to do much better.
Here is a company with world class hardware and software, and completely failing to exploit the market though "lack of grip on reality" Scott McNealy is definitely in the same league with Ken Olsen in having some bright ideas, but too much ego to make the best of them.
The world is aboslutely gasping for something better than Wintel, and DEC, Apple and Sun had it. Only Apple is only now recovering from the afflictions of Big Ego striking it down. DEC died of Big Ego, and Sun has barely survived.
Sun has a good reputation for quality in hardware and software. Every computer professional and Nerd knows it. Even their support is well regarded. Why are then not trouncing Microsoft and Intel? (I dont know. I am writing this on an Ultra60 running FreeBSD.)
Re:Keeping Java Closed (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it's supposed to be 'write once, run anywhere.' At the moment, it's write once, and run on Solaris, Windows, Linux (x86 or IA64 only), Mac if you don't mind waiting a bit, and maybe IRIX if you are lucky. Only very recently have FreeBSD been allowed to distribute the port to their OS. If you look somewhere slightly more obscure, like OpenBSD, then you start to have problems.
The license means that OpenBSD are not allowed to distribute a ported version of Java. They can distribute diffs to the source code, but not the source or compiled binaries. Since Java requires Java to build, installing Java on OpenBSD requires following these steps:
- Install the Linux JDK, which runs through the binary compatibility layer.
- Download the source from Sun (manually).
- Compile the JDK. This takes a long time and requires a lot of RAM.
Since the Linux JDK is only supported on i386, you can't use Java on any other architecture (such as PowerPC or SPARC).I would much rather Sun used the trademark to protect Java. Make the JDK open source, but do not allow any patched versions to be called Java (so OpenBSD, for example, could include a binary of 'Columbian' that would run Java apps, but would not be called Java). Provide a mechanism for pushing patches upstream, so that if someone does port it to a new platform there is a good chance that the next release will actually support that platform.
To be honest, it's the second of these that is the clincher. The number of hoops the FreeBSD team had to jump to in order to be allowed to ship Java with their OS was insane.
Windows clients are a money sink (Score:3, Interesting)
However, gnome is too customizable for many end-users. One large client rejected the Linux solution because their users kept rearranging their menus until they couldn't find things anymore. We had a tarball to restore their desktop, but it got very annoying very quickly to constantly have to restore it. They ended up going to Sun desktop on a Sunfire server and the neat stateless clients where your desktop follows your access card. Another shop went with a Windows Citrix server "because our applications need to be 100% 'compatible'".
Another smaller client tackles the high TCO of Windows by not dealing with it. They buy cheap $400 PCs. When they get a virus, or develop a hardware problem, there is no attempt to diagnose it - the PC is just "worn out". They junk it and buy a new one. They keep mail and documents on a server, so only wallpaper, bookmarks, and such are lost. Although some of the problems might be fixable, at $100/hr service cost this approach is likely cost effective on average. They very kindly "throw" the "broken" PCs in our direction, which is why our LTSP thin clients are "free".
I agree that Java on the client is cumbersome. However, on the server it is sweet. Switching between PPC AIX, Intel Linux, and Sun servers is a snap (other than learning the system administration differences between the flavors of unix). We just copy the application binaries and files over, and presto! Instant port.
Re:What about... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you RTFA... (Score:4, Interesting)
He accurately points out that, when Windows 95 shipped, Microsoft was sweeping all before it, including Apple, which was adrift at the time. It took a lot of balls to say "No" to Windows then.
Too bad Sun didn't make more out of that decision. Apple now has 20% more revenue and half as many employees. The plan seems to have been to milk the Internet bubble forever. "The network is the computer" is just a slogan. There is no special AJAX or WebOS sauce in Solaris.
Schwartz praises MacNealy for holding down job cuts in R&D. But you have to ask "What the hell are 30,000 people doing at Sun?" when Apple somehow manages to make the best personal computer hardware, and personal computer OS software, and the best consumer electronics device on the market, all with one quarter of the number of employees as Microsoft.
Schwartz is very, very smart. He knows he has to make big changes, like getting the open-sourcing of Java right, and figuring out how to use Linux, during his honeymoon time in the CEO position or the chance will be lost.
What Schwartz does not mention is that MacNealy set a bad tone and created problems unneccessarily. Statements like "You have no privacy, get over it." and the inability to get out in front of the Linux parade are the reasons Schwartz is in and MacNealy is out. Hopefully this is the last time Schwartz looks back. He has plenty of very hard work ahead of him.
Re:Credit for millions of jobs?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jonathan Schwartz is a hype meister (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason Java failed on the desktop was because Sun's desktop technologies sucked (and still do); Microsoft may have been planning to sabotage them, but they didn't even have to bother.
Are you seriously sugesting that Suns decline had nothing to do with Microsofts tactics.
I don't know about him, but I certainly am. Some time in the 1990's, Sun machines became overpriced and their software bloated and people looked for alternatives. By the end of the 1990's, Linux was the platform of choice for startups and universities (viz Google). None of that had anything to do with Microsoft, except that Sun didn't even attempt to compete with Microsoft at the low end.
Re:What about... (Score:3, Interesting)
What planet are you from? The only site more liberal than Slashdot is Democraticunderground.com. You really must not read anything here if you honestly think Republicans are even in a majority much less in control here.
Re:they have lost control (Score:3, Interesting)
It's irrelevant to my point whether there are multiple JVM implementations; it's a fact that Java just isn't being used significantly by Linux distributions. Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSuSE and Fedora don't even ship with a compliant Java implementation.
And, yes, I am a C# fanboy because it gets my work done a lot better than Java.
Finally, the JCP doesn't change the fact that people can't implement and change Java without Sun's blessing; that means that Java is closed in any sense that I care about.
Re:Riding the Wave (Score:3, Interesting)
No, Sun was not just a small part. Sun was a dominant part of the promotion of 'Open Systems' in the 1980s - encouraging the use of UNIX with documented and standard protocols. It had quite a battle, with vendors such as IBM attempting to encourage use of closed and proprietary systems that tied IT installations in to one vendor (sound familiar?).
Sun had a great vision - that wide use of compatible systems would allow customers to mix products from different vendors and combine hardware and software. This would create a large market for standard systems that Sun could compete in. They helped grow this market by freely donating standards such as NFS to the community.
It was this use of standard and largely compatible systems based on common software (C/C++, UNIX) that helped provide the basis for the growth of open source, and later, Linux.
(Microsoft, meanwhile, had their collective heads in the sand, or rather, in their hindquarters, trying to deny that this potential Windows-dominance threat was anything worth thinking about. Remember when they thought MSN was an *alternative* to the Internet? Anything they don't utterly control, they hate.)
Nothing has changed here.
It is true that for a long time, Java was one of the all-important buzzwords, but it didn't pan out quite as well as it might have.
It is the dominant language serverside, growing for corporate client-side development, has rapidly growing use for open source development (check out Sourceforge projects), on just about every mobile phone, turning up in cars, and aeronautics, and even helping to control Mars missions.
It has done extremely well, and it is far, far more than 'one of the all-important buzzwords'.
Sun was important, but not *that* important. CERN was far more important....
The web was based on the open systems and protocols that Sun was a major factor in promoting.
Re:Keeping Java Closed (Score:3, Interesting)
For example there is an app on work that uses a custom schedule app and I want to interface with it. I am learning java and there is no way to interface to the app and customize it without doing OLE/COM or a VBA script.
In portable languages like Perl and Python you can integrate heavily into each operating system if you wanted or remain portable..
Why can't Java have something like CPan and
Lets face it? This is the reason Java has not taken off on the desktop. The api and gui framework is the best out there but you can't integrate into windows like you can with C#.
Re:i realize it's fashionable to bash mcneally (Score:5, Interesting)
Another way of describing SGI's mistake is that they expected Intel to be technological leaders, as opposed to market leaders.
The last CPU that Intel produced that was decent in it's first (or even second) revision was the 8080 -- and even that was mostly because there was very little to compare it to at the time.
Then Zillog came up with the Z80 which Intel cloned with the 8085. There was nothing really good about the 8086 -- in fact my pet theory was then (and is still now) that IBM chose it because it was so badly designed that it would never be real competition for the cash cow that their /360 mainfraim line was (something that couldn't be said about the Motorola and National Semiconductor chips).
Intel then tried to produce a real 32 bit chip -- a marketing driven bastard child that died in infancy. The 80186 and 80286 were attempts to clean up the worst aspects of the 8086 without throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but turned out to be little more than a foul tasting soup.
The '386 solved the problem by emulating the 8086 16 bit mode and providing an entirely new (well, kinda) 32 bit engine, but it wasn't until the pentium that they finally got even that right.
As I remember it nobody came to be a respected mover in the workstation market using an Intel-made chip. SGI and Apple went with Motorola. SGI eventually bought MIPS, and Apple rode the 68000 family for a decade before moving to another Motorola chip. DEC came out with the much-respected Alpha, and IBM/Motorola came out with the RS/6000 -- all of which allowed them to ride out (more or less) the MS/Intell steamroller.
By the end of the '90s I think that it was becomming clear that AMD was better at producing 'Intel' chips than Intel was. The outcome of the 64 bit 'intel' wars was no big surprise to me.
Given that history, I would have been very wary of betting the future of my company on Intel producing an industry-leading chip. History shows that the main thing that the Intel monopoly had going for it was that it was the 'standard' chip for the "Wintel" platform.