Sun To Sell Linux PCs

Rubbersoul writes "Reuters.com is reporting that in "a bid to undermine arch-rival Microsoft Corp" Sun is going to jump into selling low cost Linux PCs. The article is a bit low on technical details, but is interesting none the less. Also if you take this new news with a story from yesterday about Sun pushing StarOffice for schools around the world, you really start to get an idea that sun wants to beat MS like a red headed step child ..." An editorial in the WorldTechTribute argues that Sun's education-market giveaway is exactly the sort of behavior that Microsoft has been attacked for in the past.

Comments

First Funny Joke!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Saudi Ambassador to the U.N. has just finished giving a speech, and walks out into the lobby where he meets his American counterpart. They shake hands and as they walk the Saudi asks, "You know, I have just one question about what I have seen in America."

The American replies, "Well your Excellency, anything I can do to help you I will do."

The Saudi whispers, "My son watches this show 'Star Trek' and in it there are Russians and Blacks and Asians, but never any Arabs. He is very upset. He doesn't understand why there are never any Arabs in Star Trek."

The American laughs, leans over and says, "That's because it takes place in the future."

Re:SUN's motivation

[mustangdavis]

"The primary motivator for enterprise customers (to buy Sun Linux desktops) will be reduction in costs and freedom from Microsoft," Sun said in a statement on the user conference.

Since when are large companies really concerned with "freedom from Microsoft"?? Sun is concerned about their bottom line, plain and simple.

In fact, it sounds like Sun has a way to cut costs by slowly eliminating Solaris and replacing it with Linux ... which means, as usual, eliminating the jobs of innocent programmers and tech support. Also, they will be able to reduce costs by repackaging cheap hardware as Sun hardware and sell it for rediculous prices to Universities that have professors that "must have a Sun to do their research on".

Actually, they do want to be free from Microsoft, but not for the B.S. reasons they provided. This is just like big business ... sugar coat the dismissal of employees by hiding it in positively spun plan of action which will cut costs. (Isn't it great, we're going to use Linux now! We'll creat hundreds of jobs *coughing* and fire a few thousand while we're at it *stop coughing*) They never mention how it will rip out the hearts and souls of the employees that made the company a success! However, Sun is a sinking ship, so those people should have had their resume's out on the open market for over a year! If they didn't, maybe they deserve to go down with the ship for their lack of forsight ...

In anycase, I can't even fathom how the big wigs at Sun came up with this ludicrous idea of selling cheap PCs ... all they are going to do is enter a saturated market that is already under complete control by Michael Dell and alienate their loyal customer base made up of people desiring high end Unix servers ...

This should be one of the final nails in Sun's coffin. The shareholders of Sun should sue the executive managers of that company for mismanagement!

Re:Level playing field

[egomaniac]

Oh yes, I'm sure that's an accurate description of Microsoft's altruistic intentions. I can't imagine that, say, driving Apple out of the education market by giving away free stuff had anything to do with it.

Think of the children. Microsoft certainly is. They're future customers, after all.

Re:Why Sun? Sun gives light...

[NineNine]

Kids should not be learning how to make a web server in school. That's asinine. That's as useless as going to shop class to learn how to weld. Adminstration is a trade, and now a relatively low-end trade at that. Kids shold not be spending what little time they have in school concentrating on any one or two trades. That's ridiculous. Computers should be in schools as tools to help teachers teach, and as an after-school activity for a few young geeklings. That's it.

And if you want to argue as to usefulness of trades, I'd say that auto work is more useful than administration. Any fucking monkey can start a webserver or turn on a firewall. Not anybody can work on car engines. Besides, which is more useful in real life? Yeah. I thought so.