Writers Strike: We saw that coming!

Yeah, we saw that coming a long, long, long time ago, and we took our measures about it.
The Writers Guild of America just wanted to increase their share in the distribution of films and shows through the Internet, basically.
So, can you tell me what is the difference between a writer and a programmer? A writer just writes a few lines (or all the lines, ok), of a show, and then it is given to a director, who decides if he likes it or not -and always introduces its own changes, just to show who is the boss-, then the producer approves it (or not), and finally the actors play what the director say they have to play, more or less based in what the writers wrote before -it is, sometimes there is no relation between the original script and what is showed in the film-.

What about a programmer? Well, indeed they are much like writers, directors and actors at the same time, as they are the ones _the_only_ones_ that write the code and need to be sure that everything is working fine -believe me, Jonathan doesn't modify a line of the code generated by our programmers-.

What do you think, that we give our programmers a share of every software, of every Solaris we sell? Well, the answer is no. And the same happens in the rest of the industry (name it Apple, Oracle, IBM or whatever you like). Well, some may argue that some of our employees get stock options and all that stuff... peanuts. And we don't give an extra dime to those outsourced employees overseas, of course.
So, now that the Writers of America have managed to win in their demands, what may prevent Programmers of America to go on strike asking for their share in every piece of software sold? I have the answer: OpenSource.
Yeah, I have to admit it. Jonathan had a great, a brilliant idea: if the software is OpenSource, it, indeed doesn't belong to anybody, and so the programmers cannot ask us for a share in the benefits, because I'm selling it, but it's not mine, it's theirs.... Whahahahaha, I like it!

Relevance

Relevance can be everything in our business. In the 90s, IBM lost all relevance and was about to disappear -some think they are irrelevant today-. So they had to reinvent themselves, to recover their relevance in the business. Sun suffered much the same pain, we lost relevance after the dot com crisis, and by betting for the opensource strategy, new processors, R+D, etc., we are coming back, more relevant than ever (and wait until Solaris is the reference OS in the
enterprise level: we'll never loose our relevance again).
I love this Jonathan's picture, that's why I enclosed it here.

Relevance is not everything, there is also transcendence in what we do, in our actions. They have to be transcendent for the future.

That is why John Edwards should endorse Hillary R. Clinton now. If he does it now, this movement may be of great importance, as Hillary seems to be half defeated by Obama, and Edwards' endorsement would give her the impulse she needs to win the nomination, so he would be in a position where he could influence in the Clinton administration, if she wins the General Election later.
If Edwards waits too much, either candidate could assure its nomination, and thus Edwards' endorsement would be of no relevance at all.
On the other hand, Edwards could give support to Obama hoping that he would later support some of his politics in the future, but, as important as it may be, as Obama is seen now like the front-runner, Edwards would not be in a position to provide such an influence in Obama's administration as he would in a Clinton's.





By the way, I spent the weekend with Jonathan, I guess that's the reason why I am writing very much in his style...

Mobile World Congress

Well, my mission is clear here: not to buy a new iPhone (Can you guess which is the _only _ non-Java-enabled mobile maker not present at the fair?), but to sell Java to all those frig... I mean, those marvelous mobile makers of all over the world that now are joining in Barcelona to show their latest inventions.

If they don't already know, they will: JavaFX, Java in general, is what they need for their platforms, so they can build the games, the applications, the interfaces just once, and use them in any device they may build today or tomorrow (and pay Sun for each of them they build... it's a great deal for both parties).


I know, you are wondering why there is a picture of Robert Redford in this blog entry. It is simple: he is 'headlining' at the conference, and it seems he is going to talk about "...the potential of mobile - the ‘4th screen’ - as a medium for independent filmmakers to reach new audiences on a global basis..."

Hmmm, well, now I'm supposed to say something intelligent about this... but, er, well, what the heck, I don't really mind as long as the mobile has Java embedded and the broadcasting or the mobile operator is running Solaris and Sparc. That's why I like Robert, because he named his filmaking festival and the institute after our great company: Sun dance. Thank you Robert!

Sun is infected with the Oracle Buying Voracity: Now Innotek

I'm this week in a place called Barcelona (I think they became famous because of the bullfighting and because the Olimpic Games, but I'll ask Ashok to search for details later), attending the Mobile World Congress. So, it seems that Germany is nearby, because I told James (he is the pilot of our company jet) to stop by in Stuttgart to sign the contract to buy another company for Sun: Innotek.

I know, I didn't include it in the las survey of Sun's purchase, but if I had done that the SEC would have warned me, and besides that, I'm interested in knowing which company should we buy, not what we are going to buy, I already know it!!

Well, talking about Innotek people, they are very nice, they already included in their home page a link to the press release we added in our corporate web announcing the purchase, so I guess they already feel in the family.
I really like those people, so civilized, we signed the contract and then got me to eat some strudel and Sauerkraut, you know, all the typical stuff -Memo: Tell James to refill the Alka-Seltzers of the jet ASAP-. Maybe they are even too civilized: in order to prevent global warming they didn't drove me back to the airport, the left me at the Endersbach station and instructed me on how to use the orange vending machines to buy the ticket (in the train it costs a little more...).
Well, it is the least one can expect from someone who has received a check of $-sorry, undiscosed ammount-.
Why did we bought this company? Well, it is crystal clear, at least for Jonathan, as indeed it was all his idea to make this deal, and he told me while I was flying over the UK to make that little detour to sign the contract before attending the congress (well, he told James to tell me...).

The truth is that I'm trying to reach him to get some word about the real reasons why are we buying those OpenSource, non-profit organizations instead of well established and recognized manufacturers. I don't want him to come again with the "community" explanation, that we are investing in the "community" and giving back what we got in the past, and all that hippie stuff about the karma and getting back what we seed in the past, and so on. I expect him to tell me where the real bucks are in this deal. I'll tell you as soon as I know.

Sun Shopping: New Poll

Well, although we all know how reliable polls are, just have a look at California, I'm modifying the poll to take ideas on which software company should Sun buy. I don't know the names of the companies, nor what they do, or why should we buy them (I'd rather buying Dell or Mittal, real steel companies), but someone from the board advised me to run this poll, and I left it all in the hands of Ashok (so, he is the one to blame).
Your votes will be adequately processed and taken into account in the next board meeting (if Jonathan tells me when and where it is...).

Free Virtualization, and Sun's Q2 Results

Well, back to (iron) business.
Memo: Ashok, don't write articles sooo long, people don't read till the end usually. Ups, sorry, we are in the air.

Well, as I was saying (I have to talk to Ashok not to write everything I say while I'm dictating him, just the information for the blog), I'm dubbing the title of this blog entry as the one from the Jonathan's one. As you know, we provided strong results for our Q2, so we are absolutely exultant those days at the office, and so are our customers and partners. You just have to take a look at this picture:


It shows a group of our partners drinking champagne and toasting for our success. Yes, they are toasting with such enormous smiles because they know something that you don't know. Do you want to know what it is? Me too!!! Jonathan, why didn't you told me anything about those people coming to the office, and all about the champagne? Come on, I appointed you to the job, just show me a little of respect and at least inform me when you are going to have a party at the office!!!
Well, at least Jonathan hasn't discovered the secret bar I made install under the presidential desk that emerges from the floor when pressing Ctr+Alt+Del in the SunRay...


P.D.: Does that biiig smile in Jonathan's face that he finally found my secret bar...?

The race card in the race to the White House?

Hi friends, well, I don't like to talk about serious politics in my secret blog, I like machines, hardware and all that stuff, but I'll make (another) exception and will try to talk seriously.
Our friend (?) Jobso (or fake Steve), published an article criticizing another article (this time from a real person), about the race factor in the primary elections of the Dems.
I somehow agree with Susan Estrich, in that Obama does better in the polls and in caucuses than in general elections, but I don't totally agree with the race argument. Maybe some people lie in the polls because they are indeed racists and they don't want to confess, so they say they will vote for Obama and then they don't... But I have another explanation on why he is doing it better in caucuses. It has been stated that Obama has received support for most of the young people, and that his fans are real supporters (sometimes even hooligans ;-) ). They have been playing very well the "Establishment Candidate" against Clinton, making look anybody supporting Hillary more or less like a GOP ally, and they show that very fiercely in the caucuses. So, they manage to intimidate their rivals.
Then, to attend to a caucus you have to spent more than half a day discussing and showing your preferences, so if it is a working day maybe the only ones that can afford that are young students, people that are supporting Obama (sometimes just because someone told them that he is cool).
But, when you have the whole day to vote, when everybody can go to express their preferences, oh surprise, it is Hillary who wins, no matter what the polls said the days before.

Hillary and Magic Johnson

What scared me is that we, as usual, are forgetting the point of the elections. We should be careful reading the programs, and then electing the proper candidate for the country, not based on how cool he/she is, or the race, or the sex, but the program, the ideas, and how they are going to achieve their objectives. Obama and Hillary are very similar in objectives: they both focus on social protection and the extension of health care for everybody. But while Hillary states that this should be compulsory for everybody, Obama wants to make it voluntary. Well, insurance companies don't like at all Hillary's proposal, because they now can choose who to accept and who not to accept for an insurance, and they just accept those who they think are not going to be ill. If Hillary wins, it is not that they are going to stop making (an indecent and huge amount of) money, but they will have to accept everybody, and they'll have to take care of ill people, so the margins may be a little bit diminished. I insist: they will still make indecent amounts of money (more if everybody is insured), but they don't like the idea to win just an infinite amount of money with no responsibility at all. So, who is the system's candidate, she, that will extend the insurance to everybody, or he, that will make it an option: it is, will not change everything?

Think about it.

P.D.: Ashok also likes the immigration system reform that promises she has made, as he always mentions something about his spouse there in Bangalore waiting for him to come back. Maybe I'll outsource him anyway if Hillary doesn't make it.


P.D.2: This is why I like Hillary, because she is like Sun and the customers: they all say "wow, how wonderful are the Macs, how shinny, how glossy", but when they have to run a real business, they trust in our machines, and they send their IT frigtards to do the shopping for them to feed their datacenters. So, if you need someone reliable to run the Country, who you gonna vote?

SuperTuesday

Today is the supertuesday, where very likely McCain will gain the nomination in the Republican side, and
either Obama or Hillary will obtain some advantage over his rival, but probably the Dems will not have a
clear winner (unless there is a surprise).
Which is the role of a technological blogger as us in this situation? I have my very own opinion (appart
from "The Network is the Computer" and "Surrender: you have no privacy"), and I think we should not give
any opinion related to this matter, as we should be only concerned about technology and our business.
But we are all Americans (well, Ashok isn't, but writes for me), and there are other fake CEO bloggers that



are asking to vote for some candidate in particular.
The funny thing about this bloggers is that they are not really putting their money where their mouth is
(for instance, neither Jobs nor fake Jobs are putting their money for any of the candidates involved in the
campaign, and fake Jobs is asking to vote for Obama).
I think a CEO (and a fake CEO too), should not fund any candidate: imagine that the winner is another one and
you are publicly supporting the other candidate... That's why Johnatan is not funding (at least not publicly),
any of the candidates: he has me and the other VPs to do the dirty job. That's why my real me is funding
Rommney (I know he will not win, but someone has to approach the GOP just in case they win).
The truth is that today I'm going to vote for Hillary, despite the funding my real me has done. Why? Easy:
We need the Dems back, and Obama is not a suitable candidate in my opinion. He is not experienced, he is not
making sustainable proposals, and so he would not be a good presindent. Besides that, Obama is the only
opportunity the GOP has to win the presidendcy again. He is not a candidate for the integration, but for
division, as he is too radical in his proposals. On the other hand, I believe that Hillary is the integration
candidate we need: many republicans that would never accept the radicals approach from Obama would easyly vote
for Hillary (as they are also fed up with the current administration). So, Hillary is the candidate we need,
and I'll vote for her today.