November 19, 2001. Defiant Sun fighting the wrong enemy

Cover page Businessweek November 19, 2001

This is the cover of Businessweek from November 19, 2001, thirteen years ago from today.

BusinessWeek suffered a decline during the late-2000s recession as advertising revenues fell one-third by the start of 2009 and the magazine's circulation fell to 936,000.  In late 2009, Bloomberg L.P. bought the magazine—for a reported $2 million to $5 million plus assumption of liabilities—and renamed it Bloomberg Businessweek

Sun Microsystems On January 27, 2010, Sun was acquired by Oracle Corporation for US$7.4 billion, based on an agreement signed on April 20, 2009. The following month, Sun Microsystems, Inc. was merged with Oracle USA, Inc. to become Oracle America, Inc.

Microsoft On July 20, 2012, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever, despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year, with a net loss of $492 million due to a writedown related to the advertising company aQuantive, which had been acquired for $6.2 billion back in 2007.

Interesting to note that Microsoft write down derives from aQuantive's acquisition where they paid a price nearly as high as the price Oracle paid for Sun.

As of January 2014, Microsoft's market capitalization stands at $314B, making it the 8th largest company in the world by market capitalization

Microsoft was not the enemy. Microsoft was the big brother of Sun.

Google market cap today is $395B, larger than Microsoft. In 1991, they were a 3 year old private company, no one took seriously, except the funding in August 1998  of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given  before Google was incorporated in 2004.

Facebook market cap today is $154B.  Mark Zuckerberg was 16 year old  and still in high school in November 2001. He founded FaceBook in 2004.

No more comments, ladies and gentlemen Lets just quote our friend Reuven Cohen  who quotes in turn  Allen Kay in Forbes Magazine:

“Don’t worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything."