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Wal-Mart Sells PCs Preloaded With Sun's Linux
badboy3062 writes "Wal-Mart this week started selling Microtel PCs preloaded with Sun's Java Desktop System. Prices start at under $300 for a system without a floppy drive or monitor. Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president for software, says this move is just another step in its plan to gain new audiences for its technologies."
Why would you buy a Walmart PC with Linux on it for $300 and then go out and buy Windows for $150+ when you could just go buy a Dell with Windows XP preloaded on it for under $400? Unless you're planning on a five-finger discount on the Windows license it'd be more to buy a Linux box and put a non-OEM copy of Windows on it.
I am an IT (greatly diminished by the times) and I still need to use a floppy from time to time for standard office tasks or to move something small quickly across the room. It is handy to secure something small as management demands it sometimes. I am happy to oblige because if I hand it to then then at least it's part of their responsibility now (LOL silly them). How does everyone else feel?
"Sun has delivered the first viable Microsoft Windows alternative. The Java desktop system is a more affordable, secure desktop, designed to thrive in a Windows-centric world and run thousands of Java technology-based applications."
It goes on and on, including mentioning that it comes with StarOffice, it can exchange files with MS Office, it isn't prone to viruses, etc. They really are doing a good job at selling this to the average person and letting them know that there is a pretty viable option to Windows (other than mac of course)
We also have some 500 pilots of our Java Desktop System and the Java Enterprise System now running across the world...
They're certainly eager to encourage confusion of the Java Desktop with Java, aren't they? The article has a number of statements like that.
(The Java Enterprise System _does_ have something to do with Java, doesn't it? I went to their site but couldn't get one shred of meaningful information from it. Also, if I were them, I'd be less enthuisiastic about bragging about the role of their software in the Athens Olympics. It may not turn out to be the publicity windfall they want, the way that's shaping up.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The Java Desktop is a subscriber product did Wal~Mart get a discount due to expected volume or does the end user have to pay an annual maintenance fee for updates. IIRC it was $50-$100 per year depending on if you got it during the big sale (possibly still in progress). Having to pay that sort of maintenece costs would seem to push users toward Mandrake.
I'm actually curious because I had the same idea, but didn't investigate it far enough to see if SUN was willing to cut OEM customers a break. It would be nice to advertise a SUN operating system that everyone is hearing so much about rather than the scary (to small customers) Linux.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
is that why sun didn't want to open up java? to protect their new java desktop "os"?
hmmm....
e.
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So, does this mean that wal*mart is going to start stocking software for linux as well? Or just the cool windows games as usual?
-- The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thi
This is a genius price, and wal-mart's massive distribution capabilities could easily push the desktop market dramatically in the direction of linux. How large is wal-mart? Let me give an example. There's the story of the local piemaker who won a contract with wal-mart to sell his pies. Wal-mart ordered 10,000 TRUCKLOADS of pies! If they can do that kinda volume on the linux machines, Microsoft's in for a ride. Fortune 500: Microsoft = #46, Walmart = #1. Walmart wins!
In other news, see my artist interview at fulcrum gallery.
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My friend has a machine from Wal-Mart, and I'm reasonably sure that he couldn't run Linux to save his life. Most Wal-Mart PC customers aren't going to be comfortable with that kind of power. After all, these are (more-or-less!) the dregs of the technology world; people so far from the bleeding-edge that...I mean, they buy PC's at Wal-Mart. The only effect this is going to have is to expand our reputation for making geek-use-only software. And, of course, boost Dell sales.
In case you've missed out of the past decade or two, Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the WORLD. It happens to be the largest employer in most U.S. states. Revenue-wise it is one of the biggest companies in the world. Do not mess with Wal-Mart. They're as big as it gets, and anything sold there basically makes its owners bizillions if for no other reason than pure volume (i.e., sales). This move by Sun has EVERYTHING to do with sales.
Wal-mart selling another distro of linux on "their" PC's. That's kinda nifty, but it does make one ask the question:
Could this mean they'll get a clue and make their music store compatible with the computing systems they sell?
(Perhaps maybe around the time when we see Mac OS X run natively on a Microtel PC).
Wal-Mart also sells a good-quality, extremely easy-to-hack DVD player with digital sound output and S-Video out... for $30.
I don't get all this hatred of Wal-Mart. Sure, some of what they sell is cheap crap, but for the most part they seem to be pretty much the same as any discount retail chain. (And though it pains me to say so as a Minnesotan, their prices are usually better than Target's.)
Is it the stigma of it being a chain that grew out of the rural midwest and South? Is it the result of people buying into the "OMG, they're killing the small-towns" nonsense? What's the problem? Seriously.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
for the most part this is useless, hardware, why not buy a dell, with twice the processing power for 499, keep the ms windows xp disk, in cas eyou change your mind, and install whichever flavor of linux you want and have a pc that is much quicker, (hardware not os) now if dell sold the same hardware subtracting the cost of windows, then wed all be happier more productive and reliable
I've heard really good things about Sun's Java Desktop Linux. If it's based on SuSE (9.0 is so !@#$ sweet it's not even funny), it's gotta be good. I've considered purchasing the $50 discount copy, but I still wonder what their server strategy is. I actually prefer linux on the server to solaris for a lot of reasons, as I don't do anything high level enough to require a sparc. I want an end to end solution, and Sun is making it difficult.
Basically, I like the idea of using the same distribution for the server and my desktop. I can install SuSE on everything from my desktop to the Dell blade servers that I install, and it just works. This is very appealing, since I can become familiar with the environment by using it on my desktop in addition to the server.
When I went to price out one of Sun's new AMD systems, I was somewhat disappointed. First of all, the website does not give the level of detail that Dell's does. I want to know everything about the system from ram speed, to hd speed, to bus speed, etc. Then, I want much more ability to configure scsi, ide, raid levels, etc. On top of that, it was pretty expensive. You can get a dual xeon dell with 2GB of ram, 15K rpm scsi for about $1,000 less than a bare bones sun with an amd chip. For what it's worth, IBM is much worse in this regard when pricing any of their systems online. I think they're even more expensive and the website sucks way more.
Then, you have the option basically for solaris x86 (32 bit) or supplying your own SuSE 64 bit (community edition, whatever that means), or RedHat enterprise.
My conclusion is that Sun is still not going after the low end. I don't know if they just can't get the economies of scale or what, but don't sell an entry level server and pretend that you're going to offer a "premium" entry level server when the website is worse, you have fewer config options, and the price is way more than can be justified.
That said, I hope they read this stuff and adapt. How hard can it be to provide an entry level server when plenty of white box places do it even cheaper than Dell??? I can't even imagine what you get for the premium price tag.
Still, I would love the idea if they gave me a Java Server system with Linux on the bottom of the stack with Java completely installed, configured, and supported, and the option for the Java Enterprise system on top of it. What's with their affinity for Solaris, especially on the low end servers? Even if it's better in some regards, it's not as familiar, performs worse, is difficult to get app support for, etc. Give me the real deal please, which for me is Linux.
I think Sun is serious about becoming the biggest Linux vendor, as they suggested a year ago with their china deal where McNealy said "This, I believe, makes us instantaneously the number one Linux desktop play in the planet."
If they're going for volume, you can't beat Wal*Mart and China.
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This sounds great at first glance but my gut feeling is that most of these units sold will be reformatted with Windows. That's the ugly truth methinks.
Actually I think you may be wrong. I had the misfortune (ok to be fair at least it was a job and kept me fed) of working at Wal-mart for a year and a half. For much of that time I was in Electronics, and even after I was moved to checkouts the Electronics people were known to call me or bring customers up for me to answer their computer questions. Frankly the vast majority of these people (all your average joe non-techy person) could have cared less what OS they had as long as it WORKED. If the Sun Desktop works well and does the things Average Joe Consumer wants (which are web surfing, E-mail and possibly chat mainly) then the customers likely won't even notice it's not Windows on their computer.And to be honest (not trying to be mean) most of those Average Joe Consumers couldn't reformat a system and put Windows on it if their lives and the life of their first-born child depended on it. Whatever it comes with will be what it stays with.
Now it will be interesting to see if they pack in restore CDs for them, HP in particular is really bad about forgetting them, even with only a 15 day time-period for in-store returns we took back so many HPs for exchange because of missing restore CDs it wasn't funny. I believe we had more computers stacked in claims than on the sales floor most of the time.
One amusing tidbit I had\ve to mention, wonder how long it'll be before Wal-mart realizes it'll be really easy to take a stylized sun and put their smiley face in the middle.
Walmart.com actually has had a lot of options in terms of pre-loaded OS's. They come / have come with Windows, Lindows, Lycoris, Mandrake, Sun Java Desktop, and FreeDOS. Or you can get them naked.
True, all of these are cheaper than Windows (except for, of course, Windows), but if all Walmart was interested in was being Cheap, they would all be using Lindows (remember flat rate licensing?). The inclusion of Lycoris and Sun Java Desktop is an indication that they see value in having a variety of Linux desktops available.
Now, it may very well be that they simply contract out through individual companies, so that if someone wants to sell a Lycoris desktop through Walmart.com it presents no risk to Walmart, but that doesn't mean Walmart is inherently exploitive.*
*on this particular issue.
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By your logic, Because walmart always wins ( and believe me I agree 100%), ANY PRODUCT they sell will defeat their competing products. Ok, Walmart sells coke, therefore Walmart will crush pepsi. Walmart also sells Pepsi, therefore Walmart will crush Coke. So who wins? Sams Choice Cola.
Walmart likes to help its vendors... at first. They worked exclusively with Tide to see if they could reducce their operating costs. Great, Tide now operated more efficently as a compnay. Then Walmart introduced Great Value Liquid Clothes detergent (compare with Tide!). Walmart might be working with Sun, but noting that they are essentially just selling a free OS, Its just a mater of time before Walmart introduces the even lower cost Great Value Linux . It will happen, believe you me.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I believe you are correct about the profits portion of the equation. But you forgot to include the support costs of floppies.
There are a limited number of moving parts in those computers. A floppy drive is a moving part and the only one (other than the CD) that the user is expected to jam things into.
Not including it does boost profits.
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Not including it means one less thing that is likely to break and result in a phone call and/or replacement.
When you're looking at profits that small per unit, you do NOT want to waste any of it on a support call because someone jammed a floppy disk in upside down or put in a floppy with a bent metal slide.
This is especially true if these things use cheap memory that causes crashes -- as seen with Windows, people tend to blame the OS for hardware faults.
Walmart can now go to Bill Gates and say "give us a discount ... or else".
It's called leverage in business negotiations.
oh and we all know how well marxism worked out as an applied economic model? *snicker*
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
More interesting is that WalMart is preloading OpenOffice on their low-end Windows PCs. That's will accelerate OpenOffice deployment. Lots of kids are going to be doing their book reports on OpenOffice.
wal-mart got to be #1 by doing things better, faster, and cheaper than their competition.
/.er
Wal-mart's original website was a horrible mess of asp on a all MS platform. They replaced it with a linux front end after a very short time. It was big news at the time but is probably pre-history for the average
joel
Like it or not, Microsoft hardware is not only good and reliable, but if something DOES go wrong with it, they have an absolutely incredible replacement program (replacing products even after the warranty is over with no questions asked).
I have a MS keyboard and two Intellimouse Explorers and couldn't be happier with them. In my opinion, the original Intellimouse Explorer is the perfect mouse.
Walmart is just suggesting a good piece of hardware to go along with the computer they sell.
Repeat after me, Slashdot: Just because it's Microsoft doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
Just got a new Dell optiplex gx270 at work today, and the first thing done to the box was to wipe XP off of it. FreeBSD installed quickly, and now I'm copying over my homedir from the old optiplex gx1 that I've been using as my desktop...
I guess if you are accusing me of being not the normal consumer for these machines, I'll agree, but I am a software developer, I (my company) just bought a dell, and I want nothing to do with XP. If we could have purchased the box without the XP license we would have but we were required to get the license.
I build my home machines, but for work, I take what I can con the IT group into ordering for me - which is 'standard dell minitower' in our internal ordering form.
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How do you equate Wal-Mart haggling for better prices with Marxism!? If anything, it's the opposite.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
This isn't Red Hat or SuSE, It's Sun. It may be that they are not charging Walmart for the OS. They might be doing this as a promotion.
But who uses Linux right now? Mostly us geeks. Do us[sic] geeks buy computers from Dell? Most of the geeks I know (in r/l and on the net) build their own systems and wouldn't be caught dead with an oem box -- laptops usually excluded of course.
The reason most geeks built their own systems in the past was largely for economic reasons. It was much cheaper to get the parts together and build your own system than it was to buy one pre-built. Secondary to that was knowledge of what components went into the final system (i.e. you could pick higher quality components if you preferred).
Now, due to Dell, HP, and Gateway, neither of these reasons still exist. The computer price wars have left the consumer with a very good quality product for a very reasonable price. The Big Three (mentioned above) have such a strong buying force that they can get the components for their machines and PUT THEM TOGETHER for less than the average person can buy the components. To top it off, their price even includes the OS whereas the average Joe putting together a system wouldn't be able to buy a version of Windows (relax OSS fans, I ONLY use Linux) to put into the box they are building if they wanted to save money over the Big Guys.
Where am I going with this you ask? Well only to say that the reason Dell doesn't sell Linux only PC's is that when they look at what PC's to sell, they fail to consider who the Linux customer is. When they did offer Linux (Red Hat, IIRC) in the past, they did so at a price equal to their Windows offering. Thus, only a complete moron would buy one of these machines.
If I'm looking for a high quality box to run Linux (or pick your favorite OSS OS), I could care less if at one point in time the hard drive held a Microsoft product. If it is a good box, it is a good box. Now, if I am put into a decision to buy a box for X amount of money with Windows, or the same amount without Windows, I'll take the Windows. That way, when I finally decide to give it to charity and take the tax write-off, I'll get more for it. However, since I bought a PC loaded with Windows, I am counted in the "I use Windows" side of the house even though I don't.
I don't think I'm alone in my purchasing thoughts (I know I'm not the only one who understands basic math). So, Dell, et al are left with the idea that Linux isn't a viable OS and drop it instead of realizing that the way they offered Linux to us was flawed.
We are OSS users for a reason. We know how to think for ourselves. We know that the comunity we belong to will be able to resolve any problem we're thrown. We are not easily misled, and we can smell BS a mile away. And as consumers, we are not going to spend our hard earned money on a product simply because it is a small bit more convenient. If we were willing to do that, we would all be using Microsoft!
Now, a note to the Big Three: What we would really like to see from you are PC's WITHOUT an OS at all. That way, you don't have to include any OS specific tech support costs in the price of your machines. Simply have the box come with a diagnostic CD to make sure the hardware functions, and if it doesn't take care of that. Leave OS issues to the buyer, or sell tech support separately.
Just a question but, why doesn't HP have a version of Linux? Carly has nothing but good things to say about Lionux, and HP does have the experience and the position to make a great Linux system. just imagine it, hp -linux with full support for all HP hardware! Well, hopefully. I'd hate to see Dell beat HP to the punch.
As a Sun employee that DOES work in Broomfield, I can wholeheartedly confirm we've been using this for some time. Moreover, I work in a particular building on the campus that has its own Sunray network. We're mandated to use this special network, which contains just about everything on the bleeding edge that Sun has to offer, including the next unreleased version of Solaris and StarOffice, so we get to deal with the problems before the customers do.
So just to add emphasis to your statement, is Sun "eating its own dog food"? Damn right it is.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
In fact the handheld units on the floor run a version of linux (watching them do a reload is entertaining actually).
Except for some new handhelds that they rolled out for tracking layaway packages and sending cashier requests to supervisors, which run Pocket PC. Oddly enough, these new units crash frequently, and the layaway handheld is so unreliable that nobody uses it, opting instead to write package locations down in a notebook and enter them into the register manually. Imagine that.
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Except for some new handhelds that they rolled out for tracking layaway packages and sending cashier requests to supervisors, which run Pocket PC. Oddly enough, these new units crash frequently, and the layaway handheld is so unreliable that nobody uses it, opting instead to write package locations down in a notebook and enter them into the register manually. Imagine that.
Hehe, that's hilarious.Still, bet they ditch the Pocket PC ones in the future if they're that bad.