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http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/01/17/sun.apple.close.encounter/

Sun talks Apple, almost mergers

updated 09:50 am EST, Tue January 17, 2006

 

Sun, Apple close encounter


Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Vinod Khosla divulged that . The Sun Microsystems founders came together on January 11 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California to discuss technology history, stating that Sun, Apple, and Microsoft nearly agreed on a common filing protocol at one time; Apple and Sun talked about sharing a software interface, and Sun tried to get Apple to move to the SPARC architecture. Bill Joy called it a "personal disappointment" that Sun and Apple had never been able to complete a deal, citing "six very close encounters" between the companies. "As far as I know," Joy lamented, "we almost bought Apple once. We almost merged with Apple two other times."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. pliny

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Apr 2001

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    01/17, 10:56am | report spam | Reply |

    ....yeah right

    Sun says they almost bought Apple...yeah right. In their dreams.

    Reminds me of the "Sony to buy Apple!" or "Disney to buy Pixar" nonsense. They wish they could have apple's talent.

  1. jimothy

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    Joined: Sep 2000

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    01/17, 10:58am | report spam | Reply |

    Oh thank heaven!

    Could you imagine where Apple would be had they been bought by Sun, or adopted SPARC? I shudder at the thought, but I'm sure we'd still see the name of the company preceded by "beleguered" (if not "bankrupt"), and I'm sure they wouldn't have a market cap that is higher than Dell.

  1. that one guy

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    01/17, 11:10am | report spam | Reply |

    sun and apple

    Well, using the solaris kernel instead of the Mach kernel may be kind of cool. The performance of the Sparcs is still pretty good, but I beleive that Apple has done pretty good with Steve Jobs at the helm.

  1. ibugv4

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    Joined: Jun 2003

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    01/17, 11:11am | report spam | Reply |

    ummm

    I work with SUN SPARC users. They're nice people. I think it would have been good, but not in Apple's interest as a mainstream consumer item.

  1. l008com

    Addicted to MacNN

    Joined: Jan 2000

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    01/17, 05:18pm | report spam | Reply |

    In other words

    Hey media, let us on the apple bandwagon. We want some attention too!!!

  1. sehix

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    01/17, 05:43pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: ...yeah right

    There are quite a few ex-Apple people at Sun, and having worked at both companies, not a little similarity inside both.

    There was a period where being at Apple wasn't always a great thing. Times change.

  1. IVIIVI4ck3y27

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    01/17, 06:43pm | report spam | Reply |

    Actually, they're right

    Sun did almost merge with Apple during the days of Amelio. If anyone remembers, there was a continual discussion in the news about a potential merger between Sun and Apple. This was also around the time of the Be merger/buyout talks and just prior to the NeXT acquisition.

    Ellen Hancock (the head tech person at Apple at the time) and Amelio both assessed varying platforms for the basis of the future of the Mac when it was realized that Copland/Gershwin (evolution of Mac OS to a new kernal) weren't going to happen. The OS's that Amelio discussed *OPENLY* as potential futures for the platform:

    1) basing the future of the Mac on an NT (yes, Microsoft) kernal. This didn't mean necessarily a Windows OS with a Mac GUI; because the API subset would've likely remained MacOS-based and not involved Windows or even DirectX unless Apple paid fees and licensed it. Also, at the time, I'm pretty sure there was little intents of leaving PowerPC. NT 4's kernal was available for PowerPC though, not that it really was leveraged that much. Obviously, this was a no-brainer because the Mac-folk would've likely committed suicide if it ever happened, the reaction surely worse than the aghast bewilderment many had at the Intel announcement. Intel is a tech company, hardware ebbs and flows, and often once entrenched... a market hardware leader often runs away and hides for awhile. x86 is so ubiquitous that it's hard for the others to compete... one by one the other vendors have fallen, whether SGI with Irix, Sun with SPARC, Apple/IBM/Motorola with PowerPC, DEC with Alpha. Even Intels' non-x86 Itanium architecture has proven very little thus far.

    2) basing the future of the Mac off of Solaris. Didn't happen but Solaris is/was a very nice OS. SPARC isn't nearly as nice as PowerPC but it's still a competitive chip technology where it's used, although Sun is greatly bolstering their lineup with Intel software compatibility so it's obvious where the pathway lies. The fact that SGI dumped MIPS for Intel (granted, Itanium-based with custom ASICS I believe) to me paints a pattern.

    3) basing the future of the Mac off of BeOS. Didn't happen and despite the OS being very Mac-like in GUI and perhaps the most Mac-like in terms of software development as well (both at the time were heavily reliant on Codewarrior), it pretty much dealt itself to death when they tried to sink their hands deep into Apple's pockets.

    4) basing the future of the Mac off of NeXT OpenStep.

    #4 ended up being the one that was chosen. For all of us, it turned out all the better... for Amelio and Hancock, as well as Jean-Louis Gasseé of Be Inc. it was the beginning of the end for them. Amelio and Hancock were pretty much defeated by the man they brought in as a consultant (Jobs). Gasseé and company after Jobs took the helm were pretty much cut out of the option of developing for the hardware, this prevented t

  1. IVIIVI4ck3y27

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2004

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    01/17, 06:44pm | report spam | Reply |

    cont'd

    ...this prevented the clones from buying up Be and building an OS using Sheepshaver (available; similar to Classic) to simulate what it would take Apple years to do with porting Openstep to PowerPC, revise the GUI, and get a Classic environment running. With the PowerPC platform cut out from under them, no continued BeBoxen, they hastily jumped to an open Intel platform only to find it hard to support it with any degree of success. Be was a great OS, from a great company... but it's downfall was the execs. trying to take Apple for a mint when other competition laid on the table.

    Would a Be merger have helped Apple? Be + Apple ? iPod success, and much of the Mac's success IMHO will come from iPod's success. That is something that only Steve Jobs could provide IMHO.

  1. sribe

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2003

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    01/18, 10:57am | report spam | Reply |

    arrogant fools

    Yes, Sun talked about buying Apple. What the oh so conveniently leave out of the story is that they offered a price that was literally the equivalent of about 10 cents on the dollar of Apple's stock price at the time, and stated that Apple's shareholders should be glad to get that much, because before long it wouldn't even be worth that any more. The offer was so outlandish that there was widespread speculation that Sun had no intention of buying Apple but was just trying to stir up media attention. Well, that always seemed to me a really weird way to get PR, and now it seems that maybe they were simply arrogant enough to think that Apple's board and shareholders would jump at the chance to trade Apple shares for Sun shares at fire-sale prices. Somehow, I think that Apple shareholders who have been around long enough to remember the real story are kind of glad their investment in Apple is not tied up in Sun stock, you think?

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