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Sun Negotiating With Wal-Mart Over Java Desktop
An anonymous reader writes "According to an EWeek article, Sun is challenging Microsoft on a new front: the consumer market. Believing its Java Desktop System is "a more effective home and retail solution," the company is negotiating with major retailers Wal-Mart and Office Depot to include the Java desktop on consumer PCs and laptops."
And Atari thought that Alan Alda assembling a system in the blink of a 30 second advertisement would sell systems. They may sell, only to find a pirated copy of Windows on them in short order.
How many games or entertainment packages are supported under the JDS ?
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
. . . but the more that people get used to seeing non-MS operating systems (even Java and Lindows), the better.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I think this is a great idea - a company with a deep and developed support network finally pushing an alternative desktop at the consumer market. As it is also cheaper than a windows license, it is likely to be at least somewhat popular.
Now of course the problem is that Sun's massive support network is currently aimed entirely at business, so it will take them some retooling to make it consumer-friendly. Let's hope they succeed - there hasn't been a big-company supported alternative to Windows on low-end computers since IBM's OS/2.
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
It's called FUD.
They mischaracterized your product from an anonymous source. How do you defend against that?
You say
Do your relatives frequently purchase incandescent bulbs for use in their flourescent fixtures? How about disposable razor blades for use in an electric shaver? Do they frequently mix vinegar and baking soda when making recipes from scratch?
"We" are not going to have problems from this. Sun is. As for the article saying this is some sort of challenge to Microsoft... ha! Last gasp of a dying company is more like it.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
But they don't. They don't give a rat's cancerous colon about Open Source. What they care about is cheap.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Wal-Mart will be ready to sell this, but only on their website (like the Mandrake and Lindows $200 computers).
Microsoft did the same thing with .NET, though they soon realized they were overdoing it and pulled back. Sun has done it from the beginning (hence Javascript) and has never had a clue that they're doing anything wrong.
I'll say it again: Java's worst enemy is not Microsoft, it's Sun!
and mom-n-pop will be pissed when they find out that their favourite bridge program and recipie categorizer doesn't run on their new machine.
this sums it up. when you ask people what operating system they're running and they say "i don't know" they mean "windows me".
2 1337 4 u!
See, I think its funny for a different reason.
Sun isn't challenging Microsoft. Apple isn't challenging Microsoft. *nix isn't challenging Microsoft. Even combined, they're not a challenge to Microsoft.
A challenger would be a company that suddenly starts earning a MASSIVE amount of Microsoft customers over. Apple had a brief stint of this when the iMac came out, but that leveled out (or did it fall back down?) quickly.
Microsoft STILL has, what, a ninety-something percent market share? Yeah. They don't have challenges right now. Doesn't mean they're not going to *react* as though they did, but in all honesty, they really really don't.
If Wal Mart is really just looking to sell PCs at the cheapest possible price, I don't think the day the is too far away when Linux distros are sufficiently commodidized for there to be a Sam's Choice Distribution on their bottom end PCs. Just knock off the Windows look and feel, and throw a red white and blue theme on there.
Because the writer misunderstood, didn't realize it, and wrote the article anyway.
This happens all the time... the only reason we recognize it here is because it's a tech article.
Just think.... this happens in other fields too, and since we're not in that field, we just don't realize what they're saying is wrong.
yikes.
I really think Sun ought to fire their whole marketing department. "Java Enterprise System" and "Java Desktop System" are not only inaccurate, but they INVITE this kind of FUD. Remember how many "Why is it in Java? Java is so SLOW!" comments there were on Slashdot when the product was initially announced?
They also have a bad habit of renaming products for no good reason, sometimes multiple times. SunOS->Solaris (with SunOS 4.x rectroactively renamed to Solaris 1.x), Sun4/x->SPARCstation x, Sun WorkShop->Forte->Sun ONE Studio, iPlanet->Sun ONE, and so forth.
Ubi dubium, ibi libertas.
The name is incredibly misleading and I think will ultimately hurt the product. Consumers associate brand names, IMHO, as umbrella terms under which features (like language support and applications) fall. For example notice how Windows 2003 is not Windows .NET Server 2003. I suppose that name was a candidate, but it was decided to identify the product more uniquely, a simpler name was chosen. Because .NET can run on other Windows versions as well. This helps seperate the ideas of .NET with the single product Windows 2003. What seems to a technical person marketing-speak, is much more clear to a non-technical mind.
/. and surely will confuse other crowds.
Not only that, the most important and effective name, Linux, seems to be left out. Just as Linux is gaining mindshare, Sun decides to confuse an OS with a language.
Maybe if Sun did something clever and made an appliance-like OS with Java or something, then this would be appropriate. As it stands, it seems stupid on
Two words: Brand awareness. .
Java(TM) is now heavily marketed as a brand and Sun does everything it can to make sure the average Joe know it exists, even if he doesn't know what it is. Don't believe me? Check this up: www.java.com
Remember, this isn't some brand new "Java OS", it's Linux. There's a wealth of software available for Linux. If they do push the Java Desktop to consumers, they'll need to come up some way, like Lindows has, to make customers aware of all the free (and Free) software out there and make it easily available through a download service.
As for people buying Windows software, I wonder how much of a problem that would really be. Most non-tech people who have Macs know enough not to buy Windows software, but there we have a clear difference in hardware, not just a different OS running on the same class of machine.
Would people with a Lintel box think they have a "PC" and can run Windows software? Who knows. It probably will depend on how the computers are branded and sold.
Ubi dubium, ibi libertas.
People don't realize the reason why it's called the Java Desktop, but it has to do with using Linux as simply a set of extremely well written device drivers, and recognizing that the underlying OS is a commodity. *Everyone* now recognizes that value is moving "up the stack" of the OS, and of course an OS is important, at what point does it cease to become incredibly relevant? A BIOS is important, after all, but the shift from the BIOS to the OS is significant enough that the focus has moved to the OS.
.NET but a complete and utter endorsement of Sun's vision? Why not go straight to the source of leadership? Sun is earning people's trust at the same time Microsoft is destroying it, signifying a changing of the guard in terms of overall leadership in the industry. This does not mean that Sun is just going to become another Microsoft, but more that we have entered a new era and the tension comes from trying to hold on to an old paradigm for too long. And, if anything, the Internet weeds out closed technologies. The fact that Java is one of the most commonly referenced "Internet technologies" speaks for itself.
Well, the focus has now started to move away from the OS (as we now think about it, after all the BIOS is a type of OS and pretty much anything could be considered an OS) and moving higher in the stack. Call it marketing if you want, but it's accurate to indicate that this is happening. Some higher level of abstraction from the underlying hardware OS will become so significant that you will cease to notice the OS really. As it is, people think of the Internet as their computer, and Java is similarly a strategy to move the focus of computing more to the network.
Now, the JDS is not pure GNOME, not pure Linux, not pure Java, not pure anything, so why not call it where its focus is? I know my personal interest in it would be for a high level of support and integration with Java. OpenOffice, Mozilla, and other apps use Java technology in one way or another.
What I expect as a result of this move by Sun is to provide better interaction between Java and the underlying hardware OS, such as some of the projects to enable control of USB devices directly within Java. Also, Sun might provide something like what IBM is doing with SWT but using the existing Swing API but with more native support in the JVM (instead of simply a theme).
Sun is absolutely on the right track. Java is a brilliant piece of technology that is really starting to come into its own. People generally assume that when a technology has been around for a long time and hasn't really "taken off" (which some may say about Java on the *desktop*) that it means it won't, and others will realize that it's more a matter of a vision finally coming into fruition. What is Microsoft
The idea of Wal Mart selling PCs with an OS to compete with Windows appeals to me. But it can, conceivably, open up a whole host of other problems.
So... what then?It's a chicken/egg problem isn't it?
Those applications are never going to show up on the shelves without companies putting the OS there first. Sure it's a risk, but it's got to be done. I give Sun credit for this, it's a ballsy move, and it benefits the rest of us.
Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things.
This isn't all that different from the way things are now with Windows though, is it?
I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to tell such LIES!
Well, Java desktops make more sense now that Microsoft is trying to do basically the same thing with their .NET initiative. That is, when the world's largest desktop operating system developer starts treating the machine as a virtual machine, it certainly makes a player who's been doing it for years look more competent.
Sun's marketing will no doubt play off this. "Hey, remember when we said 'the network is the computer?' Remember when we wrote a system for running programs that had security built into the very core of the system? Now Microsoft's trying to do the self same things we've already done. We can deliver what Longhorn might, and we can give it to you today for less money with good support." Sounds good, no? Certainly better than either the Microsoft Line or the FUD against strictly Open Source software.
You're talking about end users...end users are VERY willing to pick up something that used to be kind of crappy if the interface has sufficiently improved. Remember how terrible IE was at first? Flash? Remember how crummy Windows Media Explorer was? Remember how hard Linux USED to be to install? People keep giving these apps another chance. People will no doubt give Java a second glance as well. And this could be EXACTLY what Linux needs to succeed on the desktop: a major player releasing a major OS with a team of talented minds enhancing GPL code.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
As people have always said, it's all about the applications. Better OS's than MS have come and gone - but windows holds the desktop because they have the desktop applications.
and argue as you may about performance or server marketshare or stability -- linux does not have the consumer application maturity.
the home consumer wants to create birthday cards, print pictures from their digicams, play games off-the-shelf, do their taxes, browse, keep a schedule, and email.
Sure, linux does all those things. but as the stifling size of the MS consumer software market shows -- having the application available does not mean you have the interface the user likes. often the home user will buy a program that lets him do something he can already do. but because the interface is so backwards, he doesn't even know it.
many home consumers will routinely use a different graphics program to scan than they do to make an invitation or an envelope or print digital pictures. current linux users are absolutely content with the single complex program. you can see there, the purpose gap as well as a culture gap between linux and the average home user.
the installation procedures, the dependencies, recompiles, configs -- it all echoes the hardcore requirements, and stands in contrast to the home user's needs.
linux on the home desktop can start to beat microsoft when the installation becomes easier, the interfaces become better, and the silly applications that slashdotters don't buy start to appear.
so unless Sun is going to really work on the consumer usability end of linux - it isn't going to work.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I wonder how Sun will handle production of these desktops if they take off. Given the demand that Wal-Mart can generate, it has often reshaped the product lines of it suppliers - frequently in ways that are not profitable to that supplier. People have noted Sun's declining sales of server hardware. However, I'm not sure that pouring resources into commodity desktops will make Sun more profitable.
I'm sure purists will claim that JFC is better for X number of reasons, but a glance at Eclipse (which Sun have also shunned) demonstrates it can produce compelling, fast and native looking apps - something which JFC has singularly failed to do.
Whether they care or not has nothing to do with whether they support it. Their actions support it, their motivations are irrelevant.
Correction:
I'll say it again: Sun's worst enemy is not Microsoft, it's Java!
The best product Sun has made was SPARC. The only profitable source of revenue they had was also SPARC. Java is an ugly language (may it's an elegant one comparing to C, C++ or Perl, but not to Lisp, OCAML, Erlang or ML. Or even to Python). And it's a blackhole sucking all money from Sun.
Less is more !
The general population cannot even copy and paste! (Yes, I teach community classes.) Having them try to interface with SUN to reset a lease is out of the question, and Walmart cannot handle that kind of customer support. You don't think SUN is going to support Walmart computers do you?
Hey, I would like to see Linux on the desktop do well, but Sun showing up with a half assed makeover of Gnome isn't going to start a revolution. Lindows hasn't changed the world either, and they've been in Wal*Mart for a while now. Most Wal*Marts I've been in don't even stock PCs.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
I think what's happening here is that Sun as a brandname hasn't had much good news lately. There was a time when Sun = innovation; there was a time when RISC as an architecture looked forward-thinking and the next big wave, and I think Sun rode that pretty well. Then Sun = enterprise; even before the dot-com boom, the solution to your horsepower and uptime needs was Sun servers. Now, both these past branding successes are pretty tarnished or pointless.
Java has been their last big brand name. There was a time when java was "cool", but now it's really about being forward facing and not-Microsoft.
Sun as a company is doing very, very poorly. The proprietary processor plan is getting nuked by both Intel and AMD. Solaris is getting killed by Linux, largely because of Sun's reticence to let it roam free from the proprietary hardware.
The hardware story may possibly be beyond being saved. Sun will try the x86 route, but who knows whether there's any real opportunity there. If that happens, it's a software game, and I think they're already trying to hitch everything they've got up to Java, whether it's really associated or not.
Sun has done this before (sure, it's ECMAScript *now*, but you still call it Javascript, don't you?), so it shouldn't be that suprising. And even if it's stupidly named, that should affect whether the product is good or not or where it goes in the future.
Exactly. If your OS can scale well to 128+ CPUs, etc., then you have a platform that has a future -- even if you don't "require" these features today.
Breakfast served all day!
Sun has not addressed any of the major issues facing Linux and the home user. Say what you like about M$, they do make a hell of a desktop for Joe Six-pack. Consider the first time Joe Six-pack installs some software and it doesn't show up in his menu... That will be the end of JDS for the average home user, the only good point being that as long as Sun sells it as JDS, the Linux community might at some later date reclaim that user, when the needed work has been done.
And that is only one trivial example of a real world ordniary user issue. Literally thousands exist, each of which has the potential to be a show-stopper for some portion of the home user base.
Linux has a long way to go before it is ready for prime time on the home front. Microsoft has queered that pitch permanently. As long as Linux does not provide, internal to the desktop environment itself, the kind of handholding help system that M$ users have at their disposal, why would Joe Six-pack switch?
All of "our" arguments about the superiority of security, etc. fall on deaf ears if folk can't use it. The home user is the guy who uses his CD drive as a cupholder people. Does anyone think Linux is ready to deal with that level of incompetence? But that is the market Sun is going after? Does anyone else see the problem there?
Now everyone restrain yourself before posting your favorite Linux rhetoric in reply. Your elegantly crafted arguments, and the sublime supremacy of your arguments (and mine) are all predicated on the necessity that the audience has access to the relveant information, but more importantly, can understand that information, and comprehend the implications of it. Now apply that to Joe Six-pack.
I understand the missionary urge that makes most of us want to push oour OS to the limit, but to be successful at converting the "heathens" requires more than a strong wish. Consider the Roman Catholic Church and Christmas. Christmas is a compromise, a case where accepted religious doctrine was modified in order to be able to attract, and retain converts among the pagans. That it was extremely successful is obvious, that it fundamentally changed core aspects of Catholocism should also be obvious. I have serious concerns about the "Church of Linus" being able to accomplish the same thing.
How many of you would accept fundamental changes to Linux in order to get it widespread use in private homes?
More importantly, how many of you would accept fundamental changes you were diametrically opposed to in oder to get Linux on more home desktops?
I strongly suspect that such a fork is coming. While I won't be so naive as to suggest that the Linuxwe all know and love is going to go away, but I will suggest it will not be the Linux that could succeed in the home market.
As Catholocsim has to make some room for patently pagan beliefs in order to grow and spread, Linux may well have to make some room for heretical beliefs for the same reasons.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
I am currently using Slackware 9.1. The java dev is as good as vb, and one hell of alot less expensive than MS orafice VB ware! I just ./setup Open Office and it has all the java bells and whistles. To my way of thinking the latest Slackware is the best distro hands down! Just because my users have to type a blind password to login doesn't slow me down. Having to type startx is not a real hardship either.
Of course being able to have multiple logins going is great as well. No I am seriously thinking of teaching Slack to small business owners. It sure is fast, even with an older (1999) p3 450 it outruns XP and MS office hands down! I think Sun should talk to Patrick et al about releasing a java desktop together.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Clients that require such features are a minimal market. Linux is better choice for 95% of the clients. Most clients would rather have a platform that has a future, not a past.
However, such clients are often willing to pay a premium for these features that are not always of interest to the 95% you mention. This cost makes up for the size of the market. In economics, it's called an "economy of scale", and it accounts for the seemingly more expensive cost of systems that are of interest to a small market segment.
Also, it's not just SUN. It's for the same "5% markets" that other OSes (e.g. VxWorks) exist. It's also why some p3 laptops cost $7000, when a top of the line Alienware costs half as much. It's that the market for laptops that can get shot by a 45 while getting pissed on by an elephant is small, and hence pays more for older technologies.
Supply and Demand - Behold the power of the maket!
Actually, the Java language itself is undergoing a bit of a rebirth at Universities. It's become the language of choice instead of C/C++ for intro- to intermediate-level CS courses. Sure, the name Java may have horrible connotations in light of the late-90's applet blitz, but when the current crop of undergraduates comes of age in a few years, Java will be seen in a much better light.
This kind of long-term market insinuation may be what Sun is banking on, especially since more and more non-CS majors are taking programming classes. As a short-term plan, of course, the decision seems to make absolutely no sense with the stranglehold that M-dollar-sign has on the consumer market and the current image of the Java language, but there just may be a longer-term goal behind Sun's actions.
Trying to appeal to the consumers understanding of the changing market and what companies have been in it the longest and understand it the best may work with the server market where informed admins are making decisions but the home user knows Windows - arguing history and logic with them to get them to switch is not a sound business strategy - in my opinion.
(I'm not suggesting Sun Microsystems is taking this route but I think you are suggesting that this type of argument would help Sun.)
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart alone could make low-cost, vendor-supported Linux computers available to almost everyone living in the continental United States. This still seems sort of hopeless-after all, consumers will still want Windows to run, well, almost all of the popular commercial software out there. After all, there isn't much commercial software, or hardware, support for Linux, right?
But that will change pretty fast once the largest retailer in the world is making Linux available to its customers. It would be a hell of a lot easier to make money from Linux software by slapping a "Wal-Mart PC Compatible" lable on the box and getting ten copies in every Wal-Mart in the USA. If Wal-Mart can succeed at selling PCs, it could even demand that software and hardware vendors support Linux to get a product onto Wal-Mart's shelves. Colleges that go all Microsoft in exchange for software discounts might have to stop requiring that students bring Windows PCs to school and use MS-Office formats for electronic submissions if half of their students realized how much money they could save by buying a Wal-Mart PC with the Java Desktop instead of a Windows PC and MS-Office.
Wal-Mart could be the catalyst for an Open-Source renaissance of sorts, bringing a shell prompts and compilers to the masses. If this report is true, and Sun can get Linux PCs on the shelves at Wal-Mart, a lot of people in Redmond are going to be really, REALLY scared.
At this point (mid to late 2004) the Linux distros, Mac OS, and *BSD will be 100% compatable with SJD software, and Adobe, Quark, Mooneshine Automation Sys, etc., will port their software to SJD/Linux, assuming it catches on. The status quo may go back to what it is now, depending on how the hardware/M$ DRM situation works out, but it looks like there is hope for 'the free world.'
Or,
one month from now Microsoft will start selling a WinXP lite edition for $15/cpu to OEMs and basically buy back their dominance.
Either way I'm sticking with Apple.
Actually most people I've talked to know that they've used Java. They recognize it when they see "programs with ugly buttons and menus that take forever to start up." I can see how this would be a bad thing to associate with.
From what I've seen, the places where Java really shines (i.e. web services) are the places where the user has no idea what's under the hood (since it's running on a server across the country).
True story.