Sun's Trading Symbol Going From SUNW To JAVA 356
Mortimer.CA writes "Straight from Jonathan Schwartz's weblog, Sun is changing their ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA: 'JAVA is a technology whose value is near infinite to the internet, and a brand that's inseparably a part of Sun (and our profitability). [...] To be very clear, this isn't about changing the company name or focus — we are Sun, we are a systems company, and we will always be a derivative of the students that created us, Stanford University Network is here to stay. But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nor a company whose products can be limited by one category — and Java does a better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other four letter symbol.'"
Not sure if this is a good idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not sure if this is a good idea (Score:4, Funny)
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It'll be "C#" or ".NET". Sure, some of those characters may not be allowed, but with a little of the green lubricant, which MS has more than enough to spare, I'm sure wall street will be willing to have it's gears greased in taht direction.
Re:Not sure if this is a good idea (Score:5, Funny)
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Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
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http://invest-faq.com/articles/triv-one-letter-ti
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You've obviously never seen our sys admin. Gaah, you said indirectly and ruined my joke!
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Uhm. (Score:3, Insightful)
So instead of naming themselves after one product category, they're naming themselves after another. Great! The name change makes some sense (who really wants the outdated "workstation" thing attached to their name?) but marketingspeak is just so silly sometimes.
Can't help but think they'll want to do this gain once Java is no longer their flagship product. If they're still around (and I hope they are!)
Re:Uhm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Uhm. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uhm. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sun (the company) = Sun Microsystems.
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Seriously, SUNW used to be well known to investors, now it just sounds like NetJ" [nettime.org] (a company at the dotcom boom that had a descriptions that said (roughly) "we don't do anything, nor do we have immediate plans to do anything". )
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S = Servers
J = Java
N = (the) Network
W = Workstations
But just Java? Seem to be ignoring three major markets....
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Fake steve Jobs explains it all (Score:2)
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Java may be nice, but it was a butt-stupid move for a company that made its money in OSes and hardware.
Get a website or something (Score:2, Funny)
Seriously though, I don't think Java is a particularly big reason for people to like Sun, and tying your company's future to it seems ill-advised.
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It's only the stock ticker (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, nothing to see here.
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Actually, in Solaris it's also the prefix of all of their official packages:
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I can't really pass judgement (Score:2)
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I could probably Google this, but... (Score:2)
Ok, I did Google it, and I guess it's "Sunoco." I guess I could've seen that one coming.
(Totally off-subject, but I'm finding that Google should be responsible for a significant decrease in general ignorance: whenever someone wonders some basic question, the answer is usually a few keywords away. This hasn't happened yet for some reason.)
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Symbols on the other US exchanges are all 3 letters or less. SUN (Sunoco) is listed on the NYSE, as is IBM and T (AT&T). Interestingly enough, the symbol "M" wasn't in use on the NYSE for a
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/. questions are SO easy these days... (Score:2, Funny)
Why, everyone under the SUN, of course!
Packages (Score:5, Insightful)
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Microsoft is changing their's too... (Score:5, Funny)
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four letter symbols (Score:2, Funny)
The full quote regarding Sun's symbol change (Score:5, Funny)
"But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nor a company whose products can be limited by one category -- and Java does a better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other four letter symbol.
Our first choice was the even more accurate DEAD, but that symbol was already taken by Emerson Burial Caskets."
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Java is not dead or dying, regardless what many on /. like to say. There are basically two primary platforms now for custom in-house business development: Java and .NET.
Businesses that are predominately Windows based (desktops, servers, SQL Server, etc) find the holistic approach of .NET and the Visual Studio tool suite (which is a decent development environment) to be the best model for them. Businesses that are more heterogeneous tend to use Java more. You are likely to find very few businesses trusti
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I was going to say any search with monster.com or craigslist show java outnumbering even c++ by a large margin. Its where the market is heading. Personally I find it takes alot of code and overengineering for most work.
Kinda makes sense, I guess... (Score:2)
Other companies have used their chief product as thier ticker symbol. Anheuser-Busch, for example, has a ticker symbol of BUD.
But in reading TFA, I can't help but feel like I'm being beat over the head with a marketing stick.
I mean, come on now... "a technology whose value is near infinite to the internet"???
Give me a break... I work in a
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a first step down a slippery slope? (Score:2)
I write this from a SUN Linux box, so I certainly hope this isn't the case.
For sufficiently small values of "Infinite" (Score:2)
What on Earth is this idiot talking about?
TWW
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I think he's talking about how I disabled Java in my web browser two weeks ago, due to the report of some asshole figuring out a way for (cr)applets to take over your browser to make even more annoying adware... and haven't noticed the difference!
Now when is Adobe going to change their stock ticker to FLSH?
Perhaps they're trying to increase share price... (Score:5, Funny)
Unfathomable. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I do take substantial issue with one thing that Schwartz said, which I think is pretty badly thought out:
I have high regards for Sun employees in general. Their management, however, I have my doubts about.
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Should APPL become IPOD? Silliness. (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone think that it would help Apple to change its trading symbol from APPL to IPOD?
Does AT&T worry that people will think telegraphs are old-fashioned?
GE, Apple, and AT&T are just names. For better or worse, people know what these companies are, not because of the names, but because of the companies. And the trading symbol is one step further removed.
SUN is an acronym for Stanford University Network. It should be a proud part of the company's heritage.
Wanting to fiddle with the trading symbol is a sure sign of a company that has no idea of what its identity is or what it is or should be doing. It also indicates an unhealthy focus on the stock, rather than company's business itself.
Heh, could cause some confusion (Score:2)
.NET Redux? (Score:2)
Wait a sec.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not change the symbol to something like SunS (Sun Systems, oops taken), or SunT (...technologies) , or Sunn (...networking, but also taken...)
You get the idea. Keep the identity they have as Sun, because that does carry recognition. Far more than I think they think Java does. It would be like MS changing their ticker to WNDZ or the federal government getting the ticker symbol DCMA...
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And in later news (Score:2)
Can SCO change theirs? (Score:3, Funny)
TOAST
KAPUT
DEAD
MLTDN
NOCSE
PWNED <---- I hated to put that last one in there, but after the way the judge ruled against them and given their current situation, I think it applies nicely.
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- JAVA
- ???
- PRFT
Strange (Score:2)
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LNUX (Score:2, Funny)
In other words, changing their ticker name to "JAVA" doesn't necessarily bode well.
Logo (Score:2)
-m
Packages (Score:2, Funny)
# pkgadd -d . SUNWzlib
pkgadd: ERROR: no package associated with <SUNWzlib>
# ls | grep SUNW
# ls | head
JAVA1251f
JAVA1394h
JAVA1394x
JAVA5ttf
JAVA5xplx
JAVAa2psr
JAVAa2psu
JAVAac
JAVAaccu
# echo Bastards
Bastards
# pkgadd -d . JAVAzlib
Processing package instance <JAVAzlib> from
Too easy (Score:2)
In other new George Lucas (Score:2)
OK, so the company isn't publicly traded, but still, has Sun not been able to get enough attention lately that it has to ride on the coat tails of Java?
Well JAVA did make a pile of money ... (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM seem to be the only company capable of actually selling java based product.
But then again they persuaded people to part with ready cash for Lotus Notes
so it doesnt really say much about Java.
I think SUN is desperate not to be seen a a hardware manufacturer becuase
of its associantion with commodity products and declining profitability.
However the only way to become a succesful software business is to SELL
software to customers, which, SUN does not do at all well.
New Slogan? (Score:3, Funny)
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Resin?
etc?
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And indeed, while a lot of websites and maybe intranet applications are built in java, to call its value 'near infinite' is such an overstatement it's plain lying.
There are a lot of technologies and even some programming languages that would completely break the Internet as we know it should they be completely gone one of a sudden. Java is most certainly not one of them.
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Java was doomed, from the first time anyone ever had to ask the question "which Java?"
The most popular programming language [tiobe.com] on the planet is doomed?
It failed on the "write-once, run anywhere" promise
You mean, the Java programs I write that run on Linux, BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Windows, and AS/400 aren't actually working? You should have told me sooner! Maybe you can tell me how, exactly, they're not working, because they seem to be working fine!
it failed on the security promise
Because we hear about buffer overflow exploits in Java programs leaving your machine vulnerable all the time? Oh, wait. We almost never hear about those.
and it failed on the "finally, you'll be free of win32" promise
That's funny, it freed me from t
s/Java/Microsoft/g (Score:2)
Just something to think about.
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What's your point?
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I remember what Java was at the height of its hype. Joe Public would come across a website that required Java, they'd click on the link to go to the site to download it, and be presented with a page where it was very difficult to tell what you should download - there would be a list of a dozen things with meaningless code names (Java 1.2 S
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All in all, I'd expect a resurgence of Java soon. With Java so ubiquitous on cellphones, Blu-Ray players, midd
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My guess is that Business loves Java because you can throw developers at a problem and be seen to be dealing with it - because there isn't a problem that cannot be solved by piling on the bodies, right?
(Confession of bias: I like Java, don't love it - it's good enough).
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