On The Margins

Sunday November 12, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Watch It

Watch for Java news as "Sun Opens Java"!

Related reports: Wall Street Journal. 

2006-11-12 23:50:18.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
business code developers java open programming sun technology

Thursday September 14, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] D-Trace and The 2006 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award

PR Newswire reports "Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) technology, a key feature in the freely available open source Solaris (TM) 10 Operating System (OS), has been honored with the top prize in The Wall Street Journal's 2006 Technology Innovation Awards." Look at  http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/ for more information.

Michael Totty of The Wall Street Journal reported the award in "The Winners are....":

This is not a first for Sun:

And it has not been an easy run, unfair or trivial result:

A Wall Street Journal editor initially screened more than 600 applications. The judges then considered 121 of the entries, selecting 12 category winners and 37 runners-up. Among the category winners are the top three award winners.

In selecting winners, judges considered whether the technology truly represents a breakthrough from conventional methods, rather than just an incremental improvement. (One of the judges, Robert Drost, won the Gold award for Sun Microsystems in 2004; he recused himself from voting on Sun's DTrace software.)

The Silver award went to HalioVolt for a light-weight solar energy panel and the Bronze to Pfizer and Nektar for inhalable insulin.

For the working of the Award committee and an assessment of the submissions this year, listen to the podast from The Wall Street Journal, in which WSJ reporter John Leger interviews one of the judges, William Webb, head of research and development at the U.K.'s Office of Communications.

The chart of all winners can be found here.

2006-09-14 09:54:13.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Saturday June 03, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Rating Sun's Products

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc., writes about a product rating program Sun plans to institute soon, You'll start to see product reviews written by users. You'll see user defined ratings, right on our products. Just like book or product reviews at Amazon. We're starting with just a few products, but it'll ultimately extend all the way up to our highest end enterprise offerings."

These reviews are "to appear on Sun's web pages and throughout our on-line store."

2006-06-03 15:27:55.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Friday June 02, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Ubuntu Moves

Where innovation and value networks matter, Open Source is not just about Open Source Software.


OpenSPARC makes it easier for OS developers to move to a revolutionary processor.


Example: Ubuntu moves onto UltraSPARC T1. UltraSPARC T1 CoolThreads Technology can be found on Sun Star Fire Servers T1000 and T2000.


Here's Sun's press release, as Ubuntu becomes the first OS after Solaris on the massively threaded processor.


To find out more, read OpenSPARC.net.

2006-06-02 21:35:45.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Monday May 15, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] @ JavaOne 2006 -- Using a Hacker Station before the Storm

I just picked up my JavaOne 2006 Conference card and am walking through the underground hallway between Mascone Center North and Mascone Center South. Here, in a portion of this hallway, we have "Hacker Stations" on both sides. These are beautifully designed SunRay 170 machines. (It would be unfair for a JavaOne 2006 attendee not to fall in love with this SunRay. In fact, I wish I had one in my own office or at home!) I slide my card in, and my profile comes up in rapid sequence — it brings with it an enterprise at my finger tips.

Right away, I compile this blog, using the tools on my desktop, which include Firefox.

All it takes for JavaOne 2006 attendees to fall in love with the Sun-driven enterprise behind JavaOne, is to use their JavaOne 2006 card to log on through one of these SunRay machines, as I've done now...and on another Firefox tab, I check my mail using EdgeMail.

Who needs a laptop at a JavaOne conference - I can even login to a remote machine to develop and build a piece of software - all using my little JavaOne 2006 Card on a "Hacker Station" (read SunRay 170)! My own account, my own profile — More later!

2006-05-15 16:37:41.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Wednesday May 03, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] EdgeMail Does Magic

I'm now officially on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s EdgeMail system.

I no longer need to worry whether I'm on VPN or not. I can check my e-mail from anywhere, anytime, using any client in an efficient, seamless manner.

At home, I can use my iMac, with its nice, wide screen, with Thunderbird as my mail client.

I can use Solaris desktop, Suse, Windows and all work seamlessly with EdgeMail through SSL-secured ports. I started with some sluggishness under VPN but a bit of persistence made that work just as well as when I'm not on VPN and when I'm on SWAN (Sun Wide Area Network).

I can now look forward to flexibility to the max, when I access my e-mail.

2006-05-03 14:35:33.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Monday May 01, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] 15 Days Left to JavaOne

Right about the time of JavaOne conferences in the last three years, I was either attending meetings of Open Mobile Alliance or visiting some mobile telecommunications partner of Sun in Europe. Although it may seem otherwise, this was a dear price to pay to miss one of the most important developer conferences on Earth.

Check out the list of JavaOne exhibitors, and if you're a member of the media, the "Media Center" is the right place to start if you're looking for some special privileges or other tid-bits of news and blogs, including the one from the honorable James Gosling himself.

(This year, OMA has acted more wisely with the timing of its meeting which will be held in Osaka, Japan.)

This year, it looks like I may be given the opportunity to attend JavaOne.

So, like others, I need to find some time to get ready. Only 15 days are left to JavaOne 2006!

2006-05-01 11:11:59.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Tuesday March 28, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] The Master on the Move

In his farewell note, Johnny L. proves, as he always has, to be a master of communicating subtle ideas in the most effective ways.

He will be missed.

2006-03-28 12:31:15.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Thursday March 16, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Coolest, Free Deal on Earth

I just noticed that Sun Microsystems Inc. is offering one of the coolest, free deals on earth.

This is real! It is the multithreaded Sun Fire T2000 server with the Solaris 10 Operating System, which features UltraSPARC T1 processer — "[T]he highest-throughput and most eco-responsible processor ever created. Drawing about as much power as a light bulb, its unprecedented 32 simultaneous processing threads give you the best performance per watt of any processor available."

2006-03-16 22:07:11.0 -- Comments [3] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Tuesday January 03, 2006

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Power and Performance

Not only has Sun Microsystems beaten competitors in 7 standard benchmark categories with its T2000 servers, it has also joined forces with beta customers to achieve 50% decreases in data-center power consumption!

High performance and low power consumption using a simple but revolutionary idea!

Some times, the simplest questions are the hardest to ask and answer!

2006-01-03 10:42:17.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Tuesday December 06, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Tree Hugs and Oracles

Today, The Wall Street Journal carried an article about Sun Microsystems's "Open Sparc" project. The last two paragraphs mentioned the special Oracle pricing for multi-core cpu machines like the Ultrasparc T1.

(This is what the WSJ says: "The database maker normally charges a license fee for each processor on a chip, which would sharply raise the cost of running multiple programs on T1-based machines. As part of a special promotion, Oracle said it would charge one-quarter of its licensee fee for each processor, indicating that customers could run eight copies of its software on a T1-based server but only be charged for two copies.")

Before leaving for work this morning, I spotted a full-page tree-hugging Ultrasparc T1 server advertisement in the print edition of Financial Times — a pretty cool ad with a story behind it!

2005-12-06 22:47:56.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Our Old Boss

Our old boss, Ed Zander, has been selected MarketWatch CEO of the year. Zander joined Motorola a couple of years ago.

2005-12-06 09:29:15.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Friday December 02, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] @Work

Every other Friday, I come to Sun's San Francisco offices to meet my colleagues. We are all part of a distributed team.

By the nature of our work and our geographic dispersal (in the Bay Area), our team knows that change and speed is the name of the game but in this flexible office space in San Francisco, I'm faced with one technological constant on every visit.

Flexibility and mobility that Sun Ray provides proves incredibly useful, again and again.

I've not reserved an office and was borrowing an office from someone. He comes in, I pull my card out of the Sun Ray, move next door, push it back into a Sun Ray, type in my password, and there it is — in less than 10 seconds (the walk from office to office included) I'm back on. The log-out and log-in part of this takes about a couple of seconds. After log-in, my desktop re-appears instantaneously.

— Flexibility and mobility on the desktop — How can anyone compete with this?

Well, maybe a voice and iris recognition in the room — but I think that might take much longer, at least for now!

2005-12-02 09:05:31.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Tuesday November 01, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Reading Under The Sun

This morning, join me for some readings under the Sun. Sample a few of the entries from Horst Thieme, who points to EFF's Weblogger's legal guide, writes about Wikipedia founder's anticipation of a different published world, reminds us of the cool CD Wired released last year and gives us a link to Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Alternatively, you can turn a few pages in Rich Sharples's Mirror Worlds. The story of the underground city for sale proves charged with a dark comedy. Finally, if you feel you're about to lose your identity, look for some sobering thoughts at Robin Wilton's esoterica to see how it (i.e. "identity," whatever that might be) gets sliced and diced into various microscopic pieces — which, in my view, if we are not alert, can actually end up enabling various forms of domination in certain cases more than it might help the holder of those pieces. Technology is a very powerful thing. Handle it with care!

2005-11-01 06:14:01.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Tuesday October 04, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Sun - Google Webcast

The webcast of Sun Microsystems - Google announcement today can be found here.

2005-10-04 12:24:03.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Monday September 12, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Good News About Sun

Reuters has published some good news about Sun. It is worth reading. It shows how Sun is addressing a whole new segment of the server market!

2005-09-12 00:16:06.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Wednesday May 18, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] The Santa Clara Campus' Gardens Come to Life

It is nice when something pleasant breaks us out of our habits of thought and behavior. Just a few minutes ago, locked into some thought while carrying my food from the cafeteria to my office, I noticed something rather special on my path. We have been on this campus for more than four years but all of a sudden something seems to have changed.

I don't know who takes the responsibility for the gardens in the Santa Clara campus of Sun Microsystems Inc. but one thing is for sure. In the last couple of weeks, the gardens have come to life and compare very well with those in the Menlo Park campus. If you're in the Santa Clara campus, make sure you walk around and take a good look at the care taken with the patches of green we have here.

Unfortunately, I don't have any picture of the gardens to share right now but if I have time, I'll post a few on my hiptop blog.

2005-05-18 13:27:59.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Saturday February 26, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Sun Sparks

This is a faint immitation of Tim Bray's Sunbeam.

Here is my pick of Sun Microsystems Inc. writers this week. Marion Vermazen writes about Sun's " very aggressive plan to roll out Solaris 10 across the approximately 1600 servers we have world wide." It is a large migration and I'm sure we'll be very successful at it. Richard Sharples' recent piece on Skype reminds me of my own experience with it. I signed up with Skype to make calls to wireline phones located in far off places and as I make these calls, I can see my account being decremented in real-time. Online accounting pre-paid style! It is quite a show if you have a chance to try it.

Colm Smyth makes an excellent point about Java IDEs in one of his recent weblogs: "It's a shame that each IDE has it's own extension framework; wouldn't it be nice if you could write a common extension for Eclipse, Netbeans and Intellij say?" No comments are necessary here. It is a matter of productivity on a subtle level. If I'm making an extension for IMS/SIP for one of these IDE's, I'd like it to work for all. To target them all individually is just very frustrating.

Gonzomofo weblog has a good piece on extreme programming, including a quote from Tim Bray, which cannot be more accurate in programming, technology and science. Incremental, atomic advances is also a favorite model of research activity according to some of my favorite institutional economists.

Hal Stern and Geoff Arnold report from Sun's CEC in San Francisco this weekend, focusing on topics as broad as Jonathan Schwartz' ability to don American sports paraphernalia and Robert Youngjohn's talk on grid computing, and we have Naoki Ishihara's Japanese weblog with a wonderful picture of Hideya Kawahara and James Gosling together. (I wonder what the exchange of the instrument signifies but I'm sure it is a very important ritual.)

Last but not least, we have the piece by Roberto Chinnici on the rise of Samsung Electronics's brand recognition. (I myself have a relatively expensive Samsung VCR which allows me to watch videos from any region on my NTSC TV here in San Jose. It has been worth every penny, also as a TV signal transcoding device.) In manufacturing of sophisticated products such as what Samsung and other consumer electronics companies have been producing year after year, lies the heart of deal-making. Roberto's piece reminds me of the papers by Oliver Williamson on "credible commitments" and "trust" where Williamson points to the importance of "exchange of hostages" (in the case of a chaebol or zaibatsu, that would be the exchange of assets and financial commitments) in safeguarding transactions where transaction-specific assets are involved. (Not all suppliers of Samsung will be able to supply other consumer electronics manufacturers due to their Samsung-specific commitments and skills. Does that make sense?)

Sun, Sun Microsystems Inc., Java, Solaris, Extreme Programming, Netbeans, IntelliJ, Eclipse, Skype, Chaebol, Zaibatsu, Trust, Economics

2005-02-26 21:40:24.0 -- Comments [7] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Wednesday January 12, 2005

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Sun Sponsors WSJ Video Reporting

Sun Microsystems Inc. is sponsoring The Wall Street Journal Video reporting.

Many papers have such video reporting sites. These are usually clips that present the journal reporters speaking to TV reporters.

Tune in if you have a subscription to the electornic WSJ and want to watch some educated, no-nonsense account of important events of the day.

For example, there are these particular reports on education policy and trade deficit ending with a trailor from Jonathan Schwartz on Solaris 10.

My father's job was to run the design department of an advertising company he had founded, and I used to hang out in the company quite a bit as a teen-ager. From what I learned in those days, I can only guess that the technique works very well in cases like this.

2005-01-12 17:55:38.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Thursday October 21, 2004

[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ] Where I Got My Sun Micorystems Inc. Corporate News for O4Q3

Here is where I got my '04 Q3 Sun Microsystems Inc. corporate news: http://www.sun.com/nc/04q3/.

The content archtiecture works well.

2004-10-21 16:00:04.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.