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From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Intel and Sun: from a MBA viewpoint
Message-ID: <30522@usc>
Date: 20 Feb 91 04:05:28 GMT
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Don't you think it's a bum deal for Sun: they invent SPARC, they
do a fantastic job doubling the speeds of machines every 2 years
since 1982 or so, they have wonderful attitudes on openness etc.,
they do a tremendous job of SunOS and endup giving it away for
free to cloners, they positively beg people to clone and compete 
with 'em, and they endup returning profits like $150e6 last 
quarter. Most probably their highest profits ever too!

Look at Intel: they start out with a terrible idea on the 8086
(relative to Motorola offerings at the time), they strike it
rich with IBM (just like Microsoft), they do a terrible job with
the 286, the 386 is a nice architecture but they single source
it, they single source the 486, they charge $1k for a chip and
they return oooodles of profits.

What is this story telling us?  Does this mean that market
pressures prefer corporate strategies like Intel's -- no matter
how terrible Intel might be towards it's customer base?  If you
did a startup today, would you try the Sun path or the
Intel/Microsoft/IBM way?

-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu
                              The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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