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What Sun got wrong

692 points · 437 comments · chmaynard

  1. grahamlee · · focus · HN ↗
    The Sun model of beefy server, ultra-thin client worked incredibly well and presaged the widespread adoption of virtualisation that eventually led to cloud computing and containerised software. Unfortunately that model made it very easy to undercut their prices using commodity hardware; I managed a Solaris/Sun Ray network c.2004 and it was cheaper to switch to Linux/Intel and buy spare hardware to keep in a cupboard “just in case” than to keep the Sun network going through its support contract.
    1. alpineman · · focus · HN ↗
      Is this how the whole LLM thing will go down once providers raise prices?
      1. andrekandre · · focus · HN ↗
        i mean, imagine if your a business and suddenly you had to expense > $200 a month for every employee just to run a compiler, or you could just buy a computer and use it for everything else and that as well…

        i think llms will be the same.

        n=1 but at $work they are forcing us off enterprise and on to personal claude max that caps at $200 and people are like “you don’t need the top end models anyways just use the cheaper one for coding”, which begs the question how long till those “good enough” models run locally (with relative ease) and our company can cut that huge monthly cost with just the macbook pro they are gonna buy anyways.

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