Sun faces four crisis in software path

  Software on the road, Sun faced with four crisis wen/Lin Yue (This article is published in the "Programmer" 2005 4th) before the time, Sun intends to organize a national top-level Java programming Contest, the message is open, many Java technologists and developers wait. That's a little bit warm, the sun company said: "The funds out of the problem, prizes, fixtures, assessment experts and other aspects of the need for corresponding cuts." As of February 15, Sun has already reached 3600 job cuts in its software division in a year, and the say of sorry personnel managers and suddenly losing their jobs must be even more depressing. More memorable, Jonathanschwartz, Sun's president and chief operating officer in the first half of last year, was the executive vice president of the software business, and after taking office, he also claimed to have transformed Sun into a software company, when domestic media even rumored that Sun would expand its software sector, What comes with it is a sharp abolition of the software sector's personnel and budgets. This makes us wonder: What happened to Sun? Let's take a look at Sun's earnings. 2004 4 to June is the last quarter of Sun's 04 fiscal year, the quarter sun to achieve profit of 795 million U.S. dollars, but planed to solve the judicial dispute payment 1.6 billion compensation, this is actually a huge loss of the quarter. In the first quarter of the fiscal year 05 (July 04 to September), Jonathanschwartz began a "transition to software company" plan, and began slashing jobs, with a loss of $174 million. In the second quarter (October 04 to December), Sun managed to get 19 million dollars in profits, as it continued to ramp up layoffs. It seems that under Schwartz's leadership, Sun is moving in the right direction. But seemingly smooth road, but lurking all kinds of crisis. One of the crises: a total loss of the Java software market. In the past year, the Java-EE middleware market has 40-50% growth, but the market recovery seems to have nothing to do with the creator of the world. According to Gartner's survey data, the current application server market, Ibmwebsphere's share of 37%,bea WebLogic is 29%, while the Sun Java System ApplicationServer accounted for 5%, And since 1999 has shown a decline in the trend of the year. Sun is the only J2ME on the Java technology line, and the profit model is not software sales, but a license fee from J2ME-backed handset makers, Sun employees said. When Schwartz started to transform Sun into the next software empire, it was an almost-divided market, and he had a way to undo such a huge disadvantage? Crisis II: Streamline, quench thirst,He who kills, is powerless. The leader of the J2SE 5.0 Development Group, Calvin Austin, left Sun in January 2005. Most Java programmers know that Calvinaustin is the number second person in the Java language developer who is second only to Joshua Bloch, and is also the author of the book J2se 1.5 in Anutshell. What about the author of "The Java Godfather" and "Effectivejava" Bloch? As early as Schwartz took office in July 2004, he has been Google dug a corner. In order to get a good report, Schwartz streamline natural understandable, but pay the price is the company's image and combat effectiveness. Without the leader of the Java world and cutting off more than 3,000 good developers, what will sun use to challenge IBM and Bea's formidable rivals? Even in Beijing, we can also feel sun's streamline. This year, Sun has slashed market costs for developers in China, and activities such as the planned award-winning essay, Java UserGroup, and the Java programming contest will shrink or even cancel in varying degrees. IBM and BEA will redouble their spending in 05 years on the most direct user-facing developer site, except for the Sun China Developer Technology Community (http://gceclub.sun.com.cn) to cut its budget. Sun's software products are less popular than their rivals, and if they lose the cohesion of the developers, it's hard to imagine what the picky developers have to recommend their bosses to buy Javasystem application server instead of WebLogic. The third crisis: The organizational structure is very heavy, the company's transformation resistance. In Kingdee Middleware Company general manager Cai Jun, Sun is never a software company, but a "hardware sales company." This slightly teasing comment tells the truth: in Sun's organizational structure, the head of the hardware sales channel occupies the most important position. This organization structure causes the whole company to pay attention to the short-term sale benefit only, neglects the long-term user relations training. In the Chinese market, Sun Company has slashed developer market funding, while still investing heavily in hardware sales channels, giving many it employees the impression that "Sun is selling hardware", which is not unrelated to Sun's own organizational structure. Under such organization structure, the software marketing department even appeared the sign of quick success. Sun Company's new Java Studiocreator development tool globally unified pricing 99 U.S. dollars, the major sites of the propaganda campaign has been overwhelming, attracting a lot of domestic software companies to call Sun China's sales call. The phone is a dozen to scare: The price of 99 of dollars of products at home unexpectedlySold to more than a few times. While this can bring some short-term gains, it reflects the chaos of the Sun's internal strategy, leaving customers and developers with a bad impression, and how to measure the damage to Sun's image? Crisis four: The people dispersed, the team is not a good band. The Art of war has a cloud: The Battle of the Heart. As a software company, a temporary profit and loss may also be easy to deal with, if the company lost confidence inside and outside, that is the most terrible. But Sun is now in a position where programmers think of Eclipse and Intellijidea as well as development tools, and the first priority for application servers is WebSphere and WebLogic; in the JCP Executive Board, More members were IBM took direction; in the private Java community, the Tssjava seminar was completely overshadowed by JavaOne. Java technology is still thriving, but Sun is increasingly moving away from the Java boom. In the eyes of most people, Java (especially enterprise-class Java) is no longer the Sun's Java. Confidence within the Sun's camp is also fading. Since last April, Sun's share price has been nasdaq:sunw 4 of dollars, and investors are feeling more and more under pressure. Sun, on the other hand, has a reputation as a "Java creator" and has little to do with the Java software market, so anecdotal speculation about Sun's acquisition is becoming increasingly popular – if it is controlled by IBM, whether it will produce a comparable. NET's Super software platform? Even more, as Japanese companies have been j2me, rumors of a Japanese company are circulating inside the Sun software department. Although the rumor is non-existent, Manter can be seen. The market fell to the wind, brain drain, organizational structure and business mismatch, loss of user and investor recognition, this is sun, the ambitious "software company" facing the four major crises. If we can not get through this perilous transition as soon as possible, restore the confidence of all parties and reshape the image of the enterprise in the software industry, I am afraid that the transformation of sun Company will eventually become managernent-software market did not grab, turned back to find even the original hardware market has lost. By then, Sun's days will be really sad.