Sun

Overheard: Sun and MySQL — was Oracle behind it?

I’m close to being convinced that Oracle wanted to buy MySQL to kill the product, but knew it couldn’t pull off the stunt itself. So it sent in a stooge to do the job. John C. Dvorak, The Sun-MySQL deal stinks

Let’s begin by putting MySQL in perspective: It’s the most competitive and biggest threat to Oracle Corp., if for no other reason than it’s cheaper, and in many applications, more practical.

It’s used extensively by the open-source community and is the engine that runs almost all the blogging software — including the successful WordPress, which is used as the blogging-content back end for the New York Times, among other large commercial enterprises.

I love a good conspiracy theory. The drama, the suspense, the twisted plot lines — and when Larry Ellison is a main character, it’s even better.

Overheard: MySQL purchase could be what saves Sun

The MySQL purchase by Sun makes more sense than any other acquisition they have done since they botched NetDynamics 10 years ago. This could be what saves Sun. Dana Gardner, Buying MySQL Could Save Sun

Who’s sorry now? Sun Microsystems

When Sun launched a 25th anniversary sale on its online direct-sales site, it left resellers out of the massive discount deals. VAR switchboards lit up with customers wanting the same discounts on products they’d already bought and Sun had to apologize to its channel partners. “We understand and regret that this disruption could have potentially compromised you with either trust or integrity or positioning with your clients, which is a very trusted relationship that we certainly never intended to breach.”

Overheard: The network is the computer

When the network becomes as fast as the processor, the computer hollows out and spreads across the network. Eric Schmidt, 1993

Mr. Schmidt worked for Sun when he wrote that — now he works at Google.

Overheard: Datacenter in a box coming to a batcave near you

“Sun and a consortium of other businesses are going to lower Blackbox self-contained computing facilities into a Japanese coal mine to set up an underground datacentre, using up to 50 percent less power than a ground-level datacentre.” Chris Mellor, Sun to set up datacentre in coal mine

Sun Microsystems promoted their ”datacenter in a box” concept earlier this year. The datacenters are basically 20-foot shipping containers with racks of pre-configured servers and storage. The idea is that you’d be able to build a datacenter as big as you need because the Blackboxes are modular units — and because they’re self-contained shipping containers, you could ship them  just about anywhere – including outer space.  

When I first read about Project Blackbox, I was thinking military.  But I hadn’t thought about using caves and abandoned mines for commercial use. Genius.

In the Japan project, the coolant is going to be ground water — a little controversial, but they’re working on getting away from water altogether.  Since the cave’s temperature is a constant 59 degrees F,  the cost of running the underground center is expected to be $9 million less than if it were above ground.  

Overheard: Open source inspires strange bedfellows

“If you want proof that open source is turning the world on its head, look no further than this announcement that Dell will be distributing Solaris on select Dell PowerEdge servers.” Matt Asay, The gods must be crazy: Dell and Sun link up

Overheard: Tech acquisitions psychic predictions

“My money would go on IBM buying SUN at this point. But again, at the end of the day, Sun is a hardware company, despite noise to the contrary by pony-tail boy.” Marc Fleury, To consolidate or not to consolidate