A guy called Joe
The world's best advice: "if it doesn't work, stop doing it", applies to mergers as much as to government - and ignoring it was probably Sun's single biggest mistake.
Managing L'unix
A free-ranging daily blog on issues related to Unix - including Linux, BSD, and Solaris - with a particular focus on enterprise-level decision-making.
Paul Murphy
Paul Murphy (a pseudonym) is an IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies.
Latest Posts
Oracle's invisible elephant
From Oracle OpenWorld: nothing but good news - and a missing elephant, or maybe two.
The CIO role in the Unix Enterprise
There's really not much to running a Unix system in the enterprise: as CIO all you need to do is create your own mini-me s in user departments, continually beat back the wintel/dp bigots, avoid the invisibility that comes with success, and recruit others willing to sacrifice their careers for professional success.
Thin clients vs. Smart Displays
If you want to understand what happened to Sun, look no further than Sun Marketing's insistence on selling the Sun Ray as a thin client - something it isn't. Thin clients have few organizational consequences, smart displays have many - and that's the distinction this is about.
Unix vs Wintel/DP: the cost/benefit issue
An imaginary wall to wall Wintel/DP to Unix conversion produces what? Operating cost savings and a dramatic turn-around in IT organizational posture: from blocking force to business enabler.
Tragedy: Waiting for the laughter to start
Usually I ignore idiotic comment but sometimes the idiocy is so apropos that the petty response is the right response - here because the writer is normally sane but produced a stunning indictment of his own position.
Forces of nature
Answering sparkle farkle - with a detour through history that should be about 10,000 words long but isn't.
Drones, arrogance, and fate
Sometimes, particularly when you look at someone else's mess, you can see the rock coming but not get them to move out of the way - and in that situation the only thing you can do is speculate about what greased the slide it's on.
Who does client-server serve?
On the surface one of the oddest things about a large client-server operation that grew from an earlier 327X style system is that they didn't meet their SLA terms then, and don't now - but the bigger question is what the transition achieved and for whom?
The real meaning of the service level agreement
I believe that outsourcing It is almost always wrong - but it has its uses if you want someone else to take the hit for forcing IT management change.