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*

Comments

Not a new platform

[matthew.thompson]

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.

Re:Not a new platform

[rugwuk]

The sunray has been around for several years. Its a flat panel, with smart card reader, move your badge to a new terminal your session goes with you. Walk from one conf room to another and your sessions goes with you!

Re:Not a new platform

[wwwillem]

Then there is the risk: In a paperless office you can lose EVERYTHING.

What about a burned down office building? :-)

Serious: Besides the "move your desktop around on campus", the main other principle behind SunRay's, MadHatter, etc. is that your paperless stuff is important enough to be put on central (probably mirrored or RAID) storage which gets backed up nightly. So you don't lose ANYTHING.

Since a year or three, I'm working 99% paperless. Don't have a cabinet with folders anymore. It also saves my lower back when I'm travelling.

Not a very clear article

[panurge]

The article hasn't been proofread very carefully and may not reflect very accurately what McNealy actually said. But I have just been on a customer site where, really, the users would all be better off with thin clients and a straightforward locked down implementation of Star Office. The management hasn't yet upgraded from workstation NT4/Office 97. In fact, they could save considerable server space and network traffic by saving documents in the SO6 zipped XML format. And as their main MIS system is now browser based, it really does look like they could run the whole thing on Linux.

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?

Re:Sun desktop...

[rugwuk]

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!

SunRay

[jm91509]

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.

Re:only four sunrays?

[lindsayt]

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).

Re:Thing is, I can and have, done it for a lot les

[jandrese]

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.