Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Intel and Sun: from a MBA viewpoint
Message-ID: <3211@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 20 Feb 91 16:31:24 GMT
References: <30522@usc>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 32

In article <30522@usc> ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
| 
| 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
	[ more on Sun being open and Intel being closed ]

  If you compare Sun, competing on an even footing in an open market,
and Intel, selling in a closed market, you are not comparing like
situations.

  With all the bashing of Intel for chip design, in truth there was not
much to choose between Intel amd other 8-bit chips. When 16-bit came
out, Motorola and others started fresh, and Intel did the 8086, with the
idea that it could take 8080 source code which had been mechanically
translated to 8086 code, and would still run.

  While the computer science types thought that the 8086 was ugly and
non-symetric (it was), the vendor types thought it was great that so
much existing software could be ported so quickly. IBM used it for their
PC, and the software vendors wrote for it. The rest is history.

  Single sourcing makes sense if you can get away with it, and Intel
has, and probably will for the forseeable future. That makes them smart
businessmen in my book, but it doesn't indicate that the market favors
Intel practice over Sun practice, it indicates that they are in
different markets.

  Oh well, this is really ecconomics, not arch.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
  "I'll come home in one of two ways, the big parade or in a body bag.
   I prefer the former but I'll take the latter" -Sgt Marco Rodrigez