Sun Microsystems: The Ideas That Outlived the Company

A file opens on an engineer's workstation, but it lives on another machine. Sun Microsystems made connected work feel natural and built a business around the systems behind it. Why did its ideas endure while its independent business did not? From Andy Bechtolsheim's Stanford workstation to NFS, SPARC, Solaris and Java, this documentary follows the decisions that expanded Sun's influence beyond its hardware. Two separate downturns, changing customer budgets and pressure on the economics of integrated systems lead to Oracle's acquisition, and the technologies that continued afterward. Chapters 00:00 A File on Another Machine 00:37 The Stanford Workstation 03:24 From Workstations to Shared Resources 04:37 NFS: Making Remote Files Feel Local 07:21 SPARC, Solaris and the Complete System 12:03 From Oak to Java 15:07 First Downturn: Customers Pull Back 17:05 Sun Tries New Paths 18:22 Second Downturn: Price and Scale 22:18 Oracle Buys Sun 23:32 What Survived the Acquisition 25:31 Why the Ideas Outlived the Company The creator of this video does not claim ownership of third-party materials featured in it. Rights remain with their respective owners.