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

Re:Good for linux(?), probably not good for Sun

[FeatherBoa]

What compelling reason is there to buy a Sun box over a the umpteen beige box vendors, IBM, Compaq, Dell, etc?

Well, Sun has not had to cut a deal with Microsoft in order to remain in business. If there's money to be made (different question entirely) from "major vendor" boxes for running Linux, Sun's in a position to exploit it. The "umteen vendors" have all sold their first-born to Bill.
Yes, you can buy no-name, but some people need/want to buy name-brand and Sun is a name-brand that is conveniently immune to Microsoft's interference.

Re:Level playing field

[azimir]

Just so you know,

StarOffice was already free for educational institutions, site liscence and all. We love it here and more and more of our people are using it. It costs us less to deploy each copy, both monetarily and time-wise.

If you dig around the educational parts of Sun's website you'll find much of their sofware is already very cheap for schools.

It's all about the bottom line

[bigmouth_strikes]

Sun has a history of pulling stunts like this against Microsoft. Their reasoning is that every dollar that doesn't end up in Microsoft's pocket, is a dollar they can't spend in developing software competing with Sun's own. It's as simple as that.

Star Office was an attempt to undermine the very profitable Office suite. By pushing Linux machines, they do the same thing with the OS. They don't gain anything on this themselves - it's not their technology, it's just that they want to take away free money from MS.

You are absolutely correct

[Ars-Fartsica]

McNealy has been trash talking Microsoft for years. Look at where it has gotten Sun shareholders.

Scott had the opportunity to make nice a few years back like Steve Jobs, and just accept the inevitable - Bill controls a huge swath of the computing market. Admitting such helped keep Apple in the game, and it got some good MS software on OSX quickly.

I'm not saying that MS and Sun would exactly be in bed today had Scott made nice, but certainly a less adversarial approach could have kept Sun out of the crosshairs.

Re:Sun Micro lays out recovery plan

[foobar104]

I guess I don't get it. How is Linux going to make the PC cheaper? Or are you just talking about the cost of purchase, not the TCO? In the enterprise, Linux is more expensive to run on the desktop than Windows is, because the most basic tools for Windows (Outlook, for one) don't exist in a usable form on Linux.

I don't think Sun is trying to sell computers to home users, here. I think we need to be thinking about how Linux fits into their enterprise computing strategy.

smart cards baby

[johnjones]

Sun are pitching it at people who own call centers and Uni's

The box's that Sun will sell have Smart Card readers in
this means that JavaCard

basically easy to setup and sign on with BIG SUN server's doing the web portal and sign on crypto

I would put a bet on it containing www so everyone is happy includeing Visa who will send you more junk mail telling you are approved

regards

John Jones