Great White North Prognostications

A year ago I had such great hope for SUN(JAVA). But it looks like they lost another key founder of the MySQL product they recently bought. So it looks like SUN is just incompatible with success.

I have generally found that with most successful software projects there are just a few people who really drive the product along. When they leave or lose control the product typically gets driven from marketing meetings and thus driven into the ground. Often this is usually not instataneous as the Marketing people initially do sell more of the given product but the product, being rudderless, drifts onto the rough shores of the land of Suck and breaks apart.

So I expect Sun to release some charts that show how great they are doing with MySQL over the next few quarters but I also expect to see my geeky compatriots start to drift to the next great database. I wonder what that is?

In summary Google will win and Blackberry will lose. A quick summary of the three products from a simplified technical point of view.

iPhone is cool and plays music. It surfs the web very well unlike almost any other web capable phone. It will show you the web in miniature as well as your desktop will show you. Except for pages using flash technology. The biggest inherent obstacle for business users is the lack of a keyboard. This means the iPhone user is mostly limited to consuming information. Cool is a major feature here. Everything about this phone is quite cool. It has quite a few applications being developed but Apple seems to want to battle with developers. Microsoft lost a whole generation of developers by doing this “our way or the highway” thing.

The blackberry line is as everyone knows is very good at email. But that is about it. Its web capability is squirlly and nobody that I have ever met uses any of the other applications. Technically it is possible for developers to make things for the blackberry but I don’t see much of this. In my opinion all RIM products are ugly and aimed at 50 year olds who think they are cool but truely truely aren’t. RIM does not seem to have much of an idea that phones are jewelry for some people.

The android is pretty ugly but cooler than anything RIM makes. It has the RIM keyboard and the iPhone web capability. But Google is doing a good job of wooing developers to make apps for the android. This will probably allow the android to be all things to all people. Quite simply it will have all the best features in both the iPhone and the various RIM products. Some coolness, a keyboard for email and stuff, and great web browsing.

The various reviews of the new Android phone compare it mostly to the iPhone and a few compare it to the Blackberry. Most of these reviews either call it a tie or they give the Android a close second place. A very few call it a winner. None of this is relevant until you consider that this is google’s first phone. What will their second phone be like?

The people who I see running around with blackberries are government people, finance people, and real-estate people. The last two groups are taking a huge hit both in jobs and budgets. Thus I foresee a general drop in all smart phone use but mostly blackberries. This will hurt the android somewhat in that it won’t be the raving success that might have come its way with a boom economy but overall this might benefit Google. From a technical point of view it looks like the Android might be cheaper to run than blackberries and iPhones and due to what google is providing to geeks it will soon have applications that will cover any software feature found on the other phones. So if you like some software feature on your favorite phone it will be matched and bettered by the android.

So I see a market that will be looking to cut back hurting blackberry and iPhone but not Android as they have doubtfully built up much dependancy on their tiny market share where as RIM basically has a single product and will be seriously hurt by any drop in revenues. iPhone will be less affected by this but it will give their many competitors such as samsung to catch up with cheaper units. This will hurt things like RIM’s R&D and general moral.

Then I see some companies adopting some Androids to cut cost. This won’t amount to much but it will get people exploring non RIM options. Then when the market rebounds people will not all return to the RIM family. Many will go to Android for both capabilities and cost.

So the timing of this bust will only put nails in RIMs coffin and open a door to Google. I don’t see this as being a huge revenue generator for Google but I do see this as being a massive revenue eraser for RIM.

So in summary Google will do OK; RIM will die a slow death; and Apple will just continue along.

PS My prediction is the RIM will fade in spurts. Basically look at the history of companies like Novell and Sun. They just sort of faded from relevance. Once in a while they would make headlines with a sizable layoff but due to a lack of any crushing debt they just sort of faded from the scene. One customer base that probably won’t switch and will keep RIM plodding along will be governments. Due to the lack of real impact by the economy they won’t cut way back and since they generally are very old school people who are very uncool they will keep on and on with their blackberries. That should fit in well with their various Novell and Sun systems.

Here is a great reason for dumping sun. In response to a rumor that MySQL co-founder Micheal “Monty” Widenius may quit Sun Microsystems one of the SUN people said, “Second, Monty’s resignation has been a possible outcome already since years before the Sun acquisition. Perhaps his resignation at some point is inevitable, given that the type of skills and qualities needed to make MySQL great are different from those needed for working productively in a larger organisation (and I am referring to the size of the MySQL team, not Sun).”

This quote has two wonderfully revealing parts. First; wouldn’t everyone who works have resignation as a possible outcome? Short of slaves all workers might resign at some point. The real question is when? So right here we have a large company trying to spin this. Why. Either he leaves or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t you have the guy say that he isn’t or he does and you deal with it. What would spinning this do for a company when if he just pops out and resigns anyway. The only thing that I would learn from this if his resignation was important to me would be that Sun can not be trusted to be forthcoming with the truth. If he isn’t resigning then the PR flacs should parade him out and have him tell it.

The second sentance kills all hope I have for sun in the future. “the type of skills and qualities needed to make MySQL great are different from those needed for working productively” Great products were the only thing that could bring sun back. But this flac seems to think that working productively is better than making MySQL great. What is this productive work that somehow results in not great MySQL? Could it be endless reams of meaningless reports and meaningless meetings?

I am just guessing this but looking at the history of MySQL (created one of the greatest databases ever with little budget) and the history of SUN (sold sort of big iron to big stupid companys until linux kicked their asses and the companies became less stupid) that there might have been an uncomfortable situation every time this guy came into a room. The courtiers would worry each time what was going to come out of his mouth. Might he tell the truth again and point to another naked emperor? Then the courtiers probably just shut him out. Just a guess.

So what have I learned from three crap investments(VMW, MSFT, JAVA) in tech?

Nimble is good. Big and old is bad.

Who is important to the company? Has their position changed? If so then just stay away. Watch for code words/phrases such as ‘allowing him to focus’, ’spend more time with his family’, ‘the new ceo is better suited to the demands of running a public company’ et tu brute?

If you see the founders of a nimble company being pushed around by someone who has an MBA and has read the prince a few too many times then this is bad.

Bill Gates and Microsoft would be a great example. This company grew and grew under his control but once the charity work came the company faltered.

Apple would be another example with a well known story of founders and such.

VMWare looks like it is in the same boat.

I am dumping Sun from my portfolio not only because it is a total dog but also because of what they are doing with MySQL. MySQL is a product that was poised to take on Oracle. It used the open source model and it was going gangbusters until Sun bought it. Sun made the usual takeover promises that they would not change a thing but now they are moving toward closing the parts of the source code. For you less technically minded this is breaking what makes products like MySQL great. This is missing the whole point of the product. This shows that Sun is still thinking like a giant company that it isn’t anymore. I had thought that they were going to be new and nimble but I now suspect that they are going to continue with their long tail slide into the dustbin of history.

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As an addition based on a comment that I received. MySQL is not going completely closed source that is the problem, it is that tiny pieces of it are. This is a tiny change. But it is a change in the wrong direction. MySQL is a great database with huge support from the Linux world along with others. But in the world of Open Source people can be fanatical about the source code being open. The moment you close even one part of the code the open source people will scream and run for other solutions. And there are other free open source databases lurking in the shadows ready to take MySQL’s place.

The key to the success of MySQL is not just that it works well but that it the linux community has adopted it wholesale. It is distributed along with most of the major distributions of linux and linux is what most of the real net is driven by. But many of the Linux distributions are black and white about opens source. If the source isn’t open then they won’t distribute it. This won’t happen overnight and it won’t even happen soon. But with the slightest hint of closed source and many in the linux world will start looking for alternatives to MySQL where they normally would not be looking at all. This would result in MySQL fading away and SUN having squandered 1 billion dollars.

Companies that buy successful things for 1 billion dollars and then change that which makes them successful by making them “better” are companies that get tossed off my portfolio.

This would be like buying a Chrysler right after they invented the minivan and removing the 3rd row of seating and putting in more trunk space. You could validly argue that people had been demanding more trunk space and this was just delivering to a proven market. Your competitors would love it and promptly make minivans that do have 3 rows of seating and kick your ass.

Oracle took a good hit today (~7%). This is one company that always confused me. There core database product is solid but there are other solid databases out there including MySQL. Oracle costs a fortune and most people who buy it just don’t need its power. The other day I had a table with 110 million rows in it and MySQL just wasn’t doing what I needed fast enough where I know that Oracle in the same scenario would be fine. Now I suspect that I could have tweaked MySQL into being fast enough but it does show where each is happiest. But the worst thing about Oracle is the sales people. I have met a few and they are the most arrogant dinks you have ever met. I am not alone. Over the years I have had various customers who commented on just how much of a twit this Oracle sales person or that was.  So my question has long been why does Oracle keep making any money? I have never been able to answer this question except to think that people like to buy their big databases from big companies. But now SUN has acquired MySQL so the only reason I can think of most people buying Oracle databases has gone away. Thus I would doubt the future of Oracle.

Counter-argument. Oracle sells more than databases. They sell an entire pile of products that companies need. Well my experience is that companies need databases. The other stuff is well… just other stuff.

My financial plans remain unchanged. I would not bet for or against on Oracle but with SUN in play I would pick against if I had to. But keep in mind that companies like Oracle rarely have any debt and many customers who aren’t about to change databases and thus will buy many more licenses into the distant future so Oracle has plenty of time to turn things around.