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Sun to Build Alternative Desktop ?
murthydn writes " At "Sun Tech Days 2003" Developer Conference in India ,Sun Microsystems Inc Chairman, President and CEO Scott McNealy exhorted Indian software programmers to build Sun's "desktop computer" as an alternative system to Microsoft software architecture .The complete article is here" 'Cuz if there is one thing that will save Sun, its a new desktop platform. *cough*
The article talks of a new desktop computer.
Looks like sun are trying to get into the low cost desktop platform providing Office-a-like features on a cheap and cheerful device.
It mentions Linux, Evolution, Gnome and Star Office - sounds like it's more of a re-packaging that anything.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Sun CEO woos Indian developers to build alternative desktop PTI[ SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 2003 09:46:19 PM ] BANAGALORE: Sun Microsystems Inc Chairman, President and CEO Scott McNealy today exhorted Indian software programmers to build Sun's "desktop computer" as an alternative system to Microsoft software architecture. "We want you to build the next generation software alternative to the Microsoft architecture," McNealy told over 2,000 software programmers and developers on the second day of "Sun Tech Days 2003" Developer Conference here. He said the desktop with a smart card reader capability would have Mad Hatter, Linux, Gnome, Evolution and Java's star office products. "The world will get a choice," he said on the desktop operating on thin client and invited developers to contribute to its development. The thin client model would be ideal for countries like India. McNealy, Chairman of the USD 13.6 billion Sun, said the company had deployed over 25,000 "Sun Rays" virtual terminals in its campus in the US, which did not have any accessories. "It is not a desktop, but works on a big server platform," he said. Terming it as "unleashing mobility with security," McNealy said access to the workstation through a smart card would be easy from any location and secure.
OK, they won't do it. There's a learning curve (though they'll have to retrain everybody when they eventually move to XP/Office 11, won't they?)But Indian companies might, they might get some real economic benefits from it, and McNealy is surely right in the general thrust of his argument.
Incidentally, and taking a less anglocentric view of the universe, how well do K/gnome/CDE support Indian languages compared to XP?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Read the article. This is Mad Hatter, as was introduced by Sun in a press release in Jan 2003.
Its a server side application in C actually that manages the session and you get the power of the backend server for your desktop! If you have a 64 way E10K, then the user sees a 64way E10K. The session is delivered as graphics packets over ethernet, so the only computer inside the sunray is a graphics card!
Its one damn thing before another. (Dick Bird 1999)
The article mentions sunrays. These are great little machines that truely are thin client.
They are small units that have 4 usb ports, a graphics card, sound (in and out), video out and a network card. All they do is relay input back to the server and display the results on the graphics card. They also have a smart card slot where you put in you smart car (obviously...) and it displays your desktop. Then at the end of the day you take out your card and you desktop disappears and reappears when you put the card back in. It doesnt' matter what sunray you put the card in, you desktop will be the same.
Think of a call center. Get VoIP working and this is the business. You can now move people around the office without any problems, and in the middle of a call. Just take out the card and go somewhere else.
Now with a nice desktop environment and sun could be on to something here. They can sell the big iron at the backend.
Sorted.
The Netra is about $1500 as equipped, and the sunrays are only about $200 each with academic discount. More expensive than a single PC, but less than four PCs! The Netra X1 (the current V100) is a really lowball sun, and it really shouldn't be used for more than five or six sunrays. The T1 (V120) can handle about ten, but for any more you have to shell out the big bucks and get a 280R (~$5000 starting). As long as you keep the number of sunrays low, it's pretty cheap. The most expensive part is the sunray software (I think about $500 if you have to pay full price).
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
And you can get a well equipped PIV with linux for $2000 and a Sun Blade 2000 will cost you 10 times as much.
This is incorrect. Sun Blade 2000 workstations start out at much less than $10,000. The ones that actually do cost ten times as much as the PC come with 2 CPUs, XVR-1000 graphics, and Gigabytes of RAM. Dropping the XVR-1000 is an instant 3 or 4 thousand dollar savings, for example.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
..is that the sunray is just an X Terminal?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
There was - in the early, mid eighties - a british company decided to make a computer that wasn't built 'to standards'. They went forward to sell heaps of them, and made quite a bit of money too...
The machine? The Amstrad PCW. More info here, here and off course here for some circut diagrams.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Damn, those are cheap components. The desktop PC with Maxed RAM (the server I assume) for only $600? Did you remember to add the HDDs, case, power supply and processor? What is "maxed ram" anyway? I'd say you'd want to invest a bit more hardware into your server.
That's not as bad as your clients though.
$160 for a PC and 17" monitor. Well, the cheapest 17" monitor I could find on Pricewatch is a Daewoo for $97 + $10 shipping. That leaves you with $53 for case, power supply, keyboard, processor, memory, NIC, motherboard, mouse, graphics card, and cables. The cheapest processor I could find was a Duron 950 for $25. That leaves you with $28 for everything else. 128MB of memory comes to $20, leaving you with $8. I don't think you're going to be able to afford much of a case, keyboard, mouse, power supply, motherboard, graphics card, NIC, or even cables, and you've already used all of the bottom of the barrel parts. Those Suns are actually surprisingly hard to match, although if you really wanted to you could do it. Just be preprared to replace lots of broken hardware since you'll be using a low end equipment.
I read the internet for the articles.
Yep, sure are. apt-get install xmove; man xmove
I do this with everything.. but I use Tightvnc.. I pop up production servers, workstations, desktops..with little to no latency, on or off campus.
Suns got a good idea, but it can be done elsewhere through different mechanisms.
-M-
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."