The technical industry has always had tremendous ebbs and flows. Just ask powerful or up and coming companies like Digital Equipment Corporation, Silicon Graphics, Informix, Netscape, Atari, and even Sun. Yet sometimes, "everything is in the timing".
With the current economic environment, it is safe to say that all organizations are taking a very serious look at how to reduce costs. This perspective is likely to continue through at least 2009 and 2010. Sun's software stack is positioned in the right place at the right time. Sun's current software stack will significantly reduce operational costs and provide more flexibility over operational budgets. As costs continue to impact organizations, you will see more traditional organizations follow the direction of start up companies.
Ninety percent of start up companies in the U.S. are using the LAMP stack (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP,Perl). The LAMP stack is a proven software stack that offers tremendous cost savings over proprietary licenses. Sun's software stack is a faster, cost effective and enterprise version of the LAMP stack. So we can expect more and more organizations looking at and moving to the Sun software stack. I'm seeing this every week in my training classes. My students are selling me on all the benefits they are receiving from this stack. And a major percentage of my students are from proprietary vendor environments.
Major Areas of the Sun Software Stack
Major areas of the software stack that will dramatically reduce costs versus alternative options:
- MySQL - The fastest growing database server in the industry. The adoption rate is increasing every month.
- Glassfish - A powerful, fast enterprise application server that is a fraction of the cost of its competitors. A great solution for customers that are growing out of their Apache and JBoss servers.
- Open Storage - With the ever increasing volumes of data that organizations need to work with, storage will continue having a significant impact on IT budgets.
- Identity Management - Fast enterprise identity management. Sun has one of the best LDAP solutions out in the industry.
- Solaris/OpenSolaris - Offer proven powerful software solutions that can significantly reduce OS costs.
- Java - Key software for mobile applications and large enterprise business applications.
So as the trend continues, watch as the Sun software stack increases in popularity. There are reports that the government is evaluating increasing its use of open source to reduce license costs. It won't take much more for the Sun software stack to become a major tipping point in the software industry.
3 comments:
Yeah, but how many will actually pony up for support contracts? And how many that do have support contracts won't renew them ( due to the bad economy)?
Plus, very few people would chose solaris/open solaris over linux. There really isn't a compelling reason. With linux, there are at least some choices with support contracts.
You've got a very good point. As to how many will be willing to go with support contracts, I do not know but I believe the potential is good. If you are running a mission critical database it is important from a business perspective to continue to get support. The medium/large companies I am going to are not looking at getting rid of support. It is a fraction of their proprietary license costs. On the other side, I am seeing companies looking very seriously at using MySQL MySQL for database projects.
We will see, but I see the bad economy as being a great opportunity for Sun/MySQL because MySQL gives organizations a lot more financial options.
As for Solaris replacing Linux, I don't see that but either, however a win for Linux is still a potential win for MySQL. With all the numbers I am seeing from the industry analysts (I look at these a lot), I see the growth of the LAMP stack to continue for the next few years. People do not understand how much MySQL is growing and their potential for growth in the next year.
It will be fun to watch and see what happens but the potential is amazing.
The GlassFish portfolio is supported on SOlaris and Linux (and WIndows). We are seeing _many_ WebLogic/WebSphere customers wanting to move to GlassFish. It is much cheaper for them.
The behavior depends on the type of customer. Enterprise customers may behave differently than much smaller companies. It is a risk/cost analysis. - eduard/o
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