Subject: Re: Slightly Off-Topic...
To: Brian Chase <bdc@world.std.com>
From: Lord Isildur <mrfusion@umbar.vaxpower.org>
List: port-alpha
Date: 06/26/2001 00:23:35
oracle is the good guys???? 
oracle and sun are just like microsoft! the only difference is that they
a: refuse to stop competing with microsoft (good) and 
b: their stuff, unlike microsoft, actually WORKS! (also good) 
but they have the same attitude that m$ does, practically. 

also, market cap does not mean that they are etiehr worth that much or 
can muster that kind of money. it is one of the most bogus measurements. 
look at revenues, profits, r&d expenditures, effectiveness of the company's
leadership, succes of products, both in the market _and_ on technical 
grounds, and where they seem to be going in terms of remaining an 
independent firm with a reason to exist. 
Id say your good guys & bad guys are much more evenly matched. Wintel still
has more cash than anybody, but they cant make a product that works to 
save their lives. if HP already gave all their help and intel STILL coudlnt
make merced^h^h^h^h^h^hitanium (cant they think of anything less stupid than
taking letters out of elements? will we have arbon and oron and arseic?) 
work right, now with alpha goodies they dont look promising to make this 
vaporware any better. of course, making anythign good is not their 
concern, they control the market. 
how long before they get the government to make it illegal to make a 
computer if its not 'intel inside'? or at all? 

isildur

On Mon, 25 Jun 2001, Brian Chase wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
> > On June 25, Brian Chase wrote:
> 
> > > The gov't will keep them afloat for as long as they need them.  Within the
> > > next few years I see SGI going the way of Cray, HP Convex, and Thinking
> > > Machines.
> >
> >   HP/Convex (more specifically, the Exemplar line) are doing pretty
> > well nowadays, from what I've read.  Those are some ALL-BALLS-POWERFUL
> > systems.
> >
> >   TMC is flat-out gone, as far as I know..
> >
> >   But Cray...did Cray go out of business when I wasn't looking?  Last I
> > heard (yesterday) they were doing pretty well.
> >
> >   Or was that not what you were suggesting...?
> 
> My point is that they're going to fall to the wayside and into marginally
> profitable niche markets.  They won't offer any real competition to the
> bigger players.  One only needs to look at the graph for 5 year market
> value of SGI to see that they've been in steady decline for the duration
> of that time.
> 
>   The "good guys"
>   ---------------
>   IBM has a market cap of $196 Billion US
>   Sun has a market cap of $49 Billion US
>   Oracle has a market cap of $100 Billion US
> 
>   The "bad" guys
>   ---------------
>   Compaq has a market cap of $23 Billion US
>   Intel has a market cap of $192 Billion US
>   Microsoft has a market cap of $371 Billion US
> 
>   The down and out
>   ----------------
>   SGI has a market cap of $203 _Million_ US
>   Cray has a market cap of $91 _Million_ US
> 
> The bad guys in total have twice as much money as the good guys in total.
> It's hard to beat them.  HP is valued at $53 Billion, but I'd imagine most
> of that is related to the diverse range of PC peripherals, and their near
> monopoly on test equipment.  They also have a fairly healthy PC business
> and their servers are going the way of Itanium.  Apple Computer is valued
> at about $8 Billion now but they're being kept alive in part by Microsoft.
> 
> As for Thinking Machines, the last I heard about them was that they're
> still around but in the data mining business (probably because the spooks
> needed this).  I did find a news release from June 7, 1999 saying that
> Oracle bought them.  Hehe... well, see now--one only has to take a look at
> http://www.think.com to see what noble end they've reached.  Wow.
> 
> It is indeed very sad to see that the companies with the best technology
> are finishing last.
> 
> -brian.
> 
>