Stocks: SUNW -vs- IBM, HPQ, MSFT, ORCL

Computers

In the following graphs I've compared Sun Microsystems (SUNW) to some of our competitors and/or partners: IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft. The charts look at the five companies all the way back to the late 80s, and back just five years. In the first graph, you clearly see the "exuberant" six year ramp that SUNW experienced starting in 1995. That's the year we launched Java and the UltraSPARC processor. I also joined Sun that year :-). The post Y2K dot-com implosion hit us pretty hard, but after a two year slide we've settled down and ended up a significantly better long-term investment than some. In hindsight at least.

The second graph looks at the same companies since Y2K. It's interesting to see that we all declined (at various rates) until mid-2002, at which point we all found a plateau that we've pretty much sustained for the last two and a half years.

I don't know about you, but I think the market is primed to move again. The IT industry landscape has changed a lot since the Y2K peak. Pressure is building. Innovation has been occurring all along. Which of the five will break out of the horizontal? My bet is that it'll be those companies that successfully combine targeted innovation and exceptional services.

April 08, 2005 06:59 PM EDT Permalink