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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."
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.
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.
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
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
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!
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.