You can read 'LIFE UNDER THE SUN: My 20-Year Journey at Sun Microsystems' if you want to know what the leader of SPARC said at the time. The book does a lot to sweet talk some of the issues, but also admits to them.

Well he became leader when it was clear that they were deep in the shit. Then he was ask if SPARC should just be killed of. He said know but said he would need 4-5 years to turn it around. And I would argue he didn't even if they made some waves with Sparc T1 chip.

Ultimately I would argue anybody reasonable would go back to conversation and say, we need to kill SPARC and switch to x86 as fast as possible.