  Robert Cringely had an interesting article last month: urlLink http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030213.html He opined that Sun, losing money hand over fist these days, will go out of business in 5 to 10 years. Essentially, the combination of Linux with cheap Intel/AMD servers will dry up Sun's bread and butter -- it's server business. Noone will want to pay $60,000 for something they can get for $5,000, and Sun can't afford to drop their prices too far too fast - the economics are working against Sun big time. Robert states that Sun is really going to have to make a bold move in order to survive, but he doesn't know what that move should be.
I, for one, never liked the fact that Sun seemed obsessed with what Microsoft was doing all the time. Scott McNeely loved to make jokes about Microsoft and Bill Gates, and did so at every opportunity, but he should have been MORE obsessed about his own business, not Microsoft's. Novell had the same obsession, and look what happened to them. Apple, for a few years, was Microsoft obsessed too, but they turned things around with the iMac and now OS X. Folks, it's not rocket science. You win the race by racing as fast as you can from the start to the finish. Sun has spent too many years standing still, too many years making jokes, too many years trying to win by lawsuit what they couldn't win in the free market. Even if they win in court, there's no way to receover all those lost (directionless) years. 
