Talk:Sun Microsystems

message: Cool list -- I'd actually been thinking of a couple of early Sun acquisitions recently, and even wanted to create some separate articles, but haven't had the time to do the necessary research.
A list of several missing ones that I don't have dates for:
* Transept (or "Transcept") DONE (Trancept) -- graphics accelerator hardware company, back in the '80s. I may have the name wrong.
* Sitka Systems  DONE (Centram Systems West) -- early network interoperability company.  Created TOPS, the Transcendental Operating System, which was really internetworking software among UNIX, IBM and Macs.
* Chorus  DONE
* NetDynamics  DONE
* iPlanet  DONE (i-Planet)
* Gridware DONE
* Aduva DONE
I believe Sun also acquired material assets from Encore, Thinking Machines, and of course Netscape.  I'm not sure if those count as "acquisitions" for the purpose of this list.
Some Sun press release mining would turn up some others pretty quickly.
I'm not sure I'd put this at the top of the article, though.  It's not the first thing I'd want to read if I were looking up a company in an encyclopedia. In fact, this might suggest that the whole History section be moved further down.--NapoliRoma 20:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Application server company NetDynamics acquisition was announced in July 1998 . I will see if I can find the date the deal was completed. --Cheesy Mike 21:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I finally got around to researching and adding several of the above, so I marked those as "DONE", including Cheesy Mike's NetDynamics addition.  I also noted the actual company name where appropriate.--NapoliRoma 23:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Wherever possible we should use references other than Sun press releases. e.g. I used news.com and internetnews.com for the Gridware and Cobalt references.--Cheesy Mike 09:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I added in Dakota Scientific Software - it was a small acquisition done by the tools group, and I couldn't even find an online reference to it outside of mention in the founder's LinkedIn profile (so that's what I cited). I worked quite a bit on the acquisition and integration, so at least I remember it... Bmoffitt (talk) 16:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

text: Should there be a header that describes that section as acquisitions? As it stands now, it just launches into a bulleted list with no explanation of what those items are or why they are listed there.  The reader is left to infer from some of the bullet points that these are acquisitions. Tvjames (talk) 20:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Acquisitions 

message: This section mainly is about the last decade. I remember Sun being quite well represented in the Top 500 in the 1990s so I checked, and indeed, it was doing quite well back then. For example, in 1995 it had 24 systems in the list http://www.top500.org/stats/list/6/procfam . --JeR (talk) 09:55, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  High Performance Computing 

message: This information needs a rewrite or help.  I will add to this section with cites. I was there but need references to point to. Let me know if you like it.
--Akc9000 19:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cobalt Aquisiton 

message: Getting quite long now. Should this be split off to a sub-article to allow for more useful expansion? Chris Cunningham 12:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it should at least be slitted into a separated category inside the article; as you said, I think it is long enough to deserve one Marion Moseby (talk) 16:27, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split acquisitions? 

message: Does anyone have info to share about Sun future products?  How about collaborating on filling in the chart below.  Westwind273 20:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future Products 

message: Why does it say "Menlo Park" in the right box and "Santa Clara" in first paragraph? 67.180.29.122 05:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Headquarters 

message: Well I read the cited source and found this particular interesting explanation concerning Sun being a "leading proponent of open source".
"Sun alone, in particular, is credited with 30% of the total code contribution in
our sample, which highlights one of the flaws inherent in the technique used for identifying
company code contribution, which is based on copyright credits42. In the case of Sun, most of
its contribution is accounted for by OpenOffice, for which Sun holds the copyright. The
entire codebase of OpenOffice is not, in fact, Sun’s sole creation, but contributors –
individuals and other firms, small and big – sign an agreement assigning Sun joint copyright
of their contributions, in order to simplify licensing and liability management"
I think the second paragraph as it stands is misleading as it seems to give the impression Sun do more than the article cited in support of the notion suggests.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.228.85 (talk) 00:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I replaced the source.  Better?--NapoliRoma 17:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second Paragraph 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: Hello guys! Its me, mario! 
I just want to say that your site is amazing! 
Good luck!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.124.101.25 (talk) 00:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello, its Mario! 

message: I have just made a very controversial change about the founders of Sun.  While Bill Joy is always listed as one of the original founders in truth he is not.  If you read the reference VINOD KHOSLA AND SUN MICROSYSTEMS, Amar Bhide, Harvard Business School, 12/14/89 you will see that he was not.  A copy can be found at: http://web.archive.org/web/20001004122402/http://www.stanford.edu/group/mmdd/SiliconValley/Bhide/KhoslaAndSUNMicrosystems.html While Bill Joy was consulted and courted during the very early days of the company, he did not agree to join for a while.  He was not even in the first 10 employees of Sun.  I know this from my time at Sun (employee #318) and looking in the password file.  Your UNIX user ID was your employee number plus a thousand.
Robert.harker (talk) 04:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Andy B. talks about this here, saying, "I think his official badge number was 6 because there were two people we hired on day one, and he came [onboard approximately] the next week."  The article about Khosla you reference above describes him as the third critical guy Khosla wanted on board, after Andy and McNealy.--NapoliRoma (talk) 06:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Bill Joy was not one of the original founders of Sun

message: I removed the stock symbol () from the intro. The symbol is in the infobox anyway. My reason is to remove clutter in the first sentence. We shouldn't put such fairly unimportant information before basic things like that Sun is a computer company. User:TimTay reverted my edit with summary nothing wrong with stock ticker in intro - see HP & Dell. I will do the same change in other company articles too if there are no objections. --Apoc2400 (talk) 14:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I object. I don't think it looks cluttered, although I do acknowledge that for every article having stock ticker in the main body of text there will be another that doesn't e.g. Apple and IBM. I suspect that as no standard has been established in the companies wikiproject - I looked and couldn't find anything - so no clear precedent for what to do. --TimTay (talk) 15:23, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I support removal. The introduction to the article should be as clear as possible. There's a tendency to throw in all sorts of junk (stock symbols, kanji representation) which doesn't directly help the reader out and can be kept in the infobox. Plus, we seem to have grabbed this idea from the business pages of a newspaper; I'm not aware of any other publication - let alone an encyclopedia - which does this as a matter of course. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:31, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

text: I just checked 30 Nasdaq company articles at random and 26 had stock symbols in the opening paragraph. --TimTay (talk) 15:56, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

text: The consensus both here and at WP:WikiProject Companies is that the should stay.  I am going to restore them.  UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:33, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing stock symbol from first sentence of article 

message: Google has about 4080 matches to "ibm sun merger". I'm seeing several sources with articles about it, most of which appear to be treating it as real and not made up. The top ten links are.
* IBM in Talks to Buy Sun in Bid to Add to Web Heft - WSJ.com
* EETimes.com - Analysis: What an IBM-Sun merger would mean
* Investor's Business Daily: IBM-Sun Merger Talk Seen As A Broadside ... [editoral; likely non-reliable]
* Again: IBM-Sun merger rumours - c0t0d0s0.org [likely to also be non reliable source]
* Spring founder downplays rumored IBM-Sun merger | InfoWorld | News ...
* Analysis: Why IBM-Sun merger makes sense [possibly non reliable source]
* IBM-Sun Merger Called Anticompetitive -- Java Hardware Software ...
* Spring founder downplays rumored IBM-Sun merger | ITworld
* Sun-IBM merger talk spurs worries about Mass. jobs - The Boston Globe
* IBM-Sun merger rumors roundup: What it means for Java ...
I think this is enough to warent a sourced section, but probably call it "Possible IBM Sun Merger" instead of just "IBM Sun Merger" Jon (talk) 15:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Jennifer Aniston article doesn't seem to have anything about her breaking up with John Meyer.  Aren't we at about the same level of encylopedicity at this point in the story?  Just sayin'--NapoliRoma (talk) 18:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Until the event happens I don't think it warrants comment on the article. If an actual takeover bid is launched (and accepted or repelled) then I think it becomes newsworthy, but right now all of the above links are generated as a result of one article in the WSJ. None contain anything significant over and above that original WSJ article. Besides, calling it a merger is making an assumption that may be incorrect - if IBM buy Sun then that's not a merger, it is an acquisition. --TimTay (talk) 19:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  No longer refererences to IBM Sun merger? 

message: However, I checked the major news sites (CNN, MSNBC, FOX) and they only have a two or three paragraph article on it. So I'm not sure if it's inclusion-worthy yet. ThomasOwens (talk) 12:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is official, so it is definitely worthy of inclusion. Sun has a press release out. With the latest developments, it is rather amusing that everyone was certain a few weeks ago that IBM would be the one doing the acquiring. Rilak (talk) 12:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Even though it's worthy of inclusion, isn't the text that's included now, "This acquisition doesn't represent its end, however. It represents the continuity to a broader market of everything that Sun had already built.", un-duely partial? Atbash (talk) 15:51, 20 Apr 2009 (UTC)

text: This article better stay and not be deleted or merged with Oracle. --Aizuku (talk) 06:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Sun Microsystems Inc. is no more, Sun is now a "wholly-owned subsidiary of Oracle" (the official language we've been told to use). 85.154.5.20 (talk) 09:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  It appears that Oracle has bought Sun. 

message: I was looking through a book, Nerds 2.0.1, and it showed Andy Bechtolsheim's, Vinod Khosla's and Bill Joy's employee badges in figure 25.  They are numbers 1, 2 and 6.  I assume Scott McNealy is employee number 4.  I think John Gilmore was employee number 5.  I do know employee number 7 was Marty Ratner, a nice man who made it very lucky with Sun.
The book reference:
Nerds 2.0.1 (Hardcover),
Stephen Segaller,
Oregon Public Broadcasting,
Copyright 1998,
TV Books LLC,
Robert.Harker (talk) 22:40, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bill Joy's employee number 

message: sun.com is no more, which creates a problem for any references in the article which refer to a sun.com address - a salutary lesson in using the right sources for an article. The only sun.com content which seems to still work is press releases from 2007 onwards, which are now hosted at oracle.com. All earlier press releases have disappeared, but many of these should be able to be sourced elswhere on the Internet e.g. at cnet.com --Simple Bob (talk) 11:42, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There's also the Wayback Machine -- one quick random check seems to indicate that's the easy fix.--NapoliRoma (talk) 12:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

text: That's a dick move by Oracle. Sun.com should have stayed >:( --Aizuku (talk) 15:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lots of invalid references post-acquisition 

message: In the intro to this article we see Sun was a company. Later we have (under "Hardware") the support service that Sun provides (present tense), under "Software" Sun is the largest corporate contributor to open source movements  (note "is", again present tense), under "Operating Systems" Sun is most well known for its Unix systems, which have a reputation for system stability (note "is"), and so on. If Sun Microsystems is no longer a company ("was a company") then should all these present-tense constructions not be recast as past tense? Tonywalton (once Sun Employee Number 25440, so article edits by me would be OR and COI)Talk 01:11, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Fait acompli. Past tenses, as time permits. See below. W Nowicki (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tenses are all over the shop 

message: Here is what I would suggest -- please note that although I work for Oracle, I plead no special knowledge and am offering this solely as an individual:
# At the time of the acquisition, for esoteric legal reasons, Sun Microsystems was merged with a component of Oracle, and then renamed to "Oracle America," owned by the larger Oracle Corporation.  At that point, "Sun Microsystems" ceased to exist, other than perhaps as a temporary shell for the purpose of handling operations in countries that take longer to deal with such merges (I don't know what the particulars of this are; I just offer my opinion that they're not relevant to this article).  Thus, "Sun Microsystems," the subject of this article, should be referred to in the past tense.
# This article is about "Sun Microsystems," not about "Oracle America," which is basically an abstract legal concept unrelated in any remarkable way to the company founded as "Sun Microsystems" in 1982 and defunct in 2010.  Thus, this article, and related components such as the infobox, should refer solely to "Sun Microsystems."
# Dorian Daley and Jeffrey Epstein, AFAIK, existed as officers of Sun or Oracle America only to fulfill the necessity of having officers (and a one-member "board") of record during the merger contortions. It is certainly not in a capacity interesting enough to list them in the infobox.  Thus, I would recommend only putting Sun Microsystems officers such as Jonathan Schwartz, Scott McNealy, and the like in the infobox.
# The "Sun|Oracle" logo currently in the infobox is not a Sun Microsystems logo; it's a product logo for servers currently manufactured by Oracle under the "Sun" (not "Sun Microsystems") brand.  Thus, I would recommend putting the last actual Sun Microsystems logo in the infobox, and moving the Sun|Oracle logo to some section of the article referring to the merger and the disposition of products formerly sold by Sun Microsystems.
--NapoliRoma (talk) 01:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: These all look like sensible proposals. Tonywalton Talk 23:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I removed the two nobodies from the infobox. It's probably better to mention the other guys in the history section with proper context and dates. Currently the history is mainly covering the stock price. FuFoFuEd (talk) 05:05, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

text: Agree to these in general. There was the usual pretense that Sun would be a division of Oracle, but until the dust settles there, having a quality article about the history is a good goal. My COI: I worked there in the early days. And as for below, I registered the Sun.com domain back then (one of the first dozen or so, perhaps notable?). W Nowicki (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there was ever any such pretense. The day the acquisition happened, things were moved into different Oracle organizations -- MySQL went into database land, Java went into software land, sales and support went into sales and support land, and so on. The closest thing to a "Sun" chunk is the systems group, which includes servers, storage and Solaris. The "Oracle America" designation, as mentioned above, seems to have only been a necessary transitional legal dance step, and never was intended to correspond to the former Sun.--NapoliRoma (talk) 15:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal on tense, name,  officers, and logo 

message: The  OpenOffice fallout, perhaps Hudson, maybe the closure of the sun.com domain name, and OpenSolaris. FuFoFuEd (talk) 05:18, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and the sale of the campus to Facebook was in the news, so should be sources for that. My personal question is the demise of Sun Labs? Hard to get reliable sourcing for that. W Nowicki (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

text: The rumor of selling the domain name on June 1 seems disproven since it is after June 1 and  continues to be owned by Oracle. Perhaps they confused the domain name with serving the old web pages, which have been phasing out over the months. Either way we need to replace with archives or independent ones. W Nowicki (talk) 22:13, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More updates needed 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_rasterfile_graphics_file
(Nathan Soliz (talk) 23:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? There was evidently an article Sun rasterfile graphics file that was deleted today. From the google cache, it seems like it was just a cut-n-paste of a .h file without any source cited. It appears there might have been a real file format with a similar name, but sources of course would need to be cited, and not sure it would be notable enough for a stand-alone article. Not sure where it would go. And defintely would not belong with such a redundant article title. The RAS page does have a red link to .ras if that is the convention. W Nowicki (talk) 19:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

text: A quick google reveals a few possible sources for the .ras file format:  or . Letdorf (talk) 21:02, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Today Sun Raster and a .ras redirect exist. The importance/notability is rather low, any reliable reference would help. –Be..anyone (talk) 22:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  SUN or RAS file type developed by Sun Microsystems, please add. 

message: The Office Suite section sounds wrong.
Among others, it seems to indicate that StarOffice was derived from OpenOffice, but I believe it was the other way around.
StarOffice was available free with a license that I don't remember, but was somewhat complicated.
I don't know enough to rewrite the section, but it does seem wrong.  Gah4 (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Office Suite 

message: Sun bought Interactive Unix System V/886, an i386 port of Unix from Eastman Kodak in the early 90s, who in turn had bought it from Interactive Computer Systems (ICS) in 1998. ICS, founded in 1977, had created PC/IX, an X86 port of Unix, followed by 386/IX (later renamed Interactive Unix System V/386). When Sun acquired the OS they foreshortened the name to just Interactive Unix and created the SunSoft inc. division to sell it. Sun positioned it as an alternative to SCO's UnixWare whom SCO had recently acquired from Novell (Who in turn had formally co-owned it with AT&T's Unix System Laboratories (ULS) under the Univel brand, before AT&T sold it's Unix assets to Novell including their share of Univel. They later Interactive Unix updated it to run better on Pentium PC's.  Since SunSoft inc. redirects here, we should explain that it was a subdivision of Sun Micro and that it sold Interactive Unix. Here are two articles to use a starting point on SunSoft and their Interactive Unix product: https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/interactive-unix https://techmonitor.ai/technology/sunsoft_launches_latest_release_of_interactive_unix_plans_recompiled_version_for_pentium Notcharliechaplin (talk) 07:42, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  No info on SunSoft in article which was an Sun Microsystems division selling Interactive Unix despite SunSoft inc redirect to here.