Sun Microsystems killed themselves 15+ years agp. The biggest failure - affordable high-end graphics - which they were either incapable of developing, or more probable, which they thought they could continue overpricing. At the time - 24 bit graphics cards with sufficient memory and perfor%mance were priced well over
$500 dollars, with some as high as $2,000. When similarly capable intel based graphics cards could be had for $50 to $250 dollars.
Sun NEVER supported the small guys like me - continual price gouging, with their software at outrageous prices, including their operating systems. I started on SunOs, went with Solaris - but had to go to gnu and other open-sources to get software I could afford to run. Those are NOT 'free' - they require an incredible amount of time to implement, keep updated, and make sure they are properly patched. A lot of intellectual effort and time. Couple that with databases that were (and are) astronomically expensive to purchase and maintain, like Oracle - it was a huge hurdle for getting a broad user base capable of contributing to technology gains and cost reductions.
I like Solaris - it was a rock solid operating system. Easier than IBM's and Silicon Graphics ... by far - extremely stable and FAST. Sad to see them go.
Oracle - i detest their 'software' and culture attitude, which is, if you ain't got 10-20k to put into our product, every year, screw you.
The sale of Sun Microsystems to Oracle guaranteed the demise of Sun.
Sad to see it happen - in the 80's and early 90's they were kickass pioneers.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good ...
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