A few days ago, Robert Cringely wrote a piece called "Sunset" about the troubles facing Sun Microsystems. Sun's in trouble, and it's interesting to think of why it's in trouble and how the company can get out of it. Cringely does a good job of both.
Sun and Apple are very similar companies. Both have survived for years on high-margin niche markets, differentiating themselves by their avoidance of Intel processors and one other major factor -- usability for Apple and reliability for Sun. In the past few years, they've faced similar challenges -- Intel's massive R&D has made the computers from both companies seem slow, and at the same time both have been attacked from the bottom. Apple has had to fight for its share of a consumer market that increasingly tilts towards low-cost (and therefore low-margin) machines, while Sun has battled against the lower-priced alternatives of Windows NT and Linux that can finally compete with Solaris in reliability and performance on the low end of the market.
With all of this, though, Apple is doing well and Sun isn't. Why is that? Apple has managed to transform itself to match the times. Usability used to be the primary reason why people bought Macs, though the hardware didn't stand out in a sea of beige boxes. Now it's design -- the iMac and Titanium PowerBooks catch your eye and make you wonder what's inside. At the same time, Apple has shifted its market, losing market share in education but picking up a number of Unix users who wouldn't have even looked at a Mac a few years ago.
Sun, on the other hand, hasn't really changed at all. The company doesn't have a response to Linux, and it can't present a compelling hardware offering for the low-end market. As Dell and others have driven prices for low-end servers down, Sun has been pushed into a high-end market, where it can wait its inevitable swallowing from below. Java won't help, either; a cross-platform runtime has never made much sense for Sun. Java runs better on Windows and Linux than it does on Solaris, so why would you buy Sun hardware for it?
I wish I could think of something Sun could do to extricate itself from this hole. It seems like every direction is blocked by some combination of Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and Red Hat. Sun needs to find a market in which they can be the best, in which business customers will be willing to pay more for superb hardware and software. I'm not sure where that is, but I wish them luck in finding it.
Today's Philadelphia Inquirer includes a cover story on the budget crisis in Oregon, which has the worst shortfall of any state but Alaska. The problems in Oregon and the way in which the state is dealing with them are simply horrifying.
I have a tough time understanding how states ended up in situations like this. We recently finished an era of prosperity, in which tax revenue increased dramatically as the economy boomed. Anyone with any sense of economics could tell you that the economy can falter as well as it can grow. It's sheer idiocy to take the money raised in good times and spend it with nary a thought of whether you'll need it later. And now we're paying the price nationwide for that shortsightedness.
You'll note, though, that the budget crises are worse on the West Coast. Why is that? It's largely because California, Oregon, and Washington, among others, have a political system that makes it easy for random initiatives to appear on the ballot. The theory is that the government's actions should be dictated by all of the citizens, so all voters can determine how certain issues are handled, or even whether to raise or lower taxes. It's absurd, and the current situation is a fine example of why it makes no sense.
Most people don't vote for tax increases unless the increase will directly benefit them. That's just the way it works. And voters simply can't reason out all of the issues on any given topic before voting for it. Convincing an entire state, then, to vote for a tax increase is nearly impossible. It's far easier to convince a majority of a legislature.
Of course, that's the argument for ballot initiatives in the first place -- that politicians spend money far too freely to be trusted to have control over it. At the same time, though, politicians can also be trusted to generally pass reasonable laws. They're not going to triple the income tax, and they're not going to eliminate all taxes. As a group, they recognize that the government has to run at least somewhat effectively. They might not do a great job of it, but they certainly have more time to think about how to make it work than most voters.
When things are thrown to the voters, though, you get ridiculous measures like the initiative in Washington to lower all vehicle registration fees to $10, regardless of the size of the vehicle. An 18-wheeler would be charged as much as a Honda Civic. I believe that one passed, and now it's tied up in the courts as the legislature tries to find a way around it. You get Floridians forcing all schools in the state to enforce class sizes that the state can't possibly pay for. And you get Oregonians turning down an income tax increase that would allow their government to at least function minimally.
There's a reason why we elect representatives. They're supposed to represent us. We're supposed to choose those who can solve problems, who can make good decisions, and whose decisions we generally agree with. When government is forced to cater to the whimsy of millions, it becomes unmanageable. That's today's Oregon, and I'm afraid it won't change any time soon.