When there's only five giant computers left, will one or more of them be Sun's?

The folks at Sun -- the company's CTO Greg Papadopoulos in particular -- have a theory (spelled out here) about how the world's compute power is consolidating into the network. And judging by Sun vice president Peder Ulander's (pictured below) complete title (VP of Redshift and Web), the company is marshaling its forces to make sure that it's well positioned to capitalize on that trend.

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But if Sun is right about where things are headed, it also knows that winning in the industry will be like winning in musical chairs. There won't be room for everybody by the time the game is over.

In the video interview above (also attached as a podcast interview that can be streamed or downloaded), Ulander talks about how "redshift" is about the transition or shift from dedicated on-premises compute resources to network-based ones that, over time will themselves consolidate into just a handful of systems (not necessarily discreet machines, but single compute utilities nevertheless).

It's not that Papadopoulos, Ulander, and the rest of Sun think that the world will actually end up being run by one or even five "systems" (although, the number "5 does get tossed around quite frequently by company executives). But they are convinced it will be far fewer systems than it is today.

We've heard this message from Sun before. It's just been couched in different language. "The Network is the Computer" rings a bell. Earlier this decade, then Sun CEO Scott McNealy (now Chairman) used to talk about what he called the "big friggin' Webtone switch" with the idea being that "Web-tone" would be hardly different than the dial tone we get from the local phone company, and much the same way the phone company is a utility, so too would be the company that delivered that Webtone from a "big friggin'" system that metaphorically is no different than a traditional telephone switch.

Now, years later after Sun first started discussing that singular vision about the direction of computer, compute power is unquestionably moving into the network and those big friggin' systems are actually starting to turn up. Examples of the network becoming the computer are clearly evident in offerings from companies like Salesforce.com, eBay and others and one need look no further than the server farms -- "systems" far all intents and purposes -- at Google or Amazon (the Elastic Computing Cloud in particular) to see how compute power can be consolidated into a single, massively scaled infrastructure.

OK. So, we finally get it. Sun may have been right all along. But now comes the hard part for Sun as well as its competitors. If the direction is towards fewer systems, that means the traditional hardware and solution providers will have fewer customers to serve. After all, if my version of the network is the computer is using Google Apps, then I may not be buying servers anymore. At least not for e-mail or Web serving. So long as that trend continues, I become less and less of a prospect for gear from Sun, IBM, HP, and others.

As the computer resources I rely on "redshift" from my server room to Google's server farm (or Amazon's or whoever's), eventually, the only remaining customers for the IBM, HPs, Suns, and EMCs of the world to battle will "redshift" to the final five (or whatever) utility providers like Google, Amazon, and others. Today, some companies are turning to traditional IT providers for their gear, and others not. Right at the top of eBay's pages for example, it says "Java Technology, Powered by Sun." But then there's Amazon and Google (two really good candidates to be in the final 5, or 10, or 20), both of whom have eschewed branded servers for a their own homegrown variety.

In the video and podcast, Ulander talks about how convincing the world's future compute utility providers to buy Sun's gear instead is clearly one of his priorities.

Related -- Dan Farber writes Sun's new mantra: Brutal efficiency at deep scale