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Sun Says Hardware Will Be Free
ron_ivi writes "Reuters reports that Sun's President and COO thinks hardware will be free and that people will pay for software subscriptions instead. Reuters quotes Schwartz: 'In our world, you will subscribe to the software and the hardware is free.' 'Directionally, our expectation is that in fiscal 2005 you're going to see a rapid departure from selling hardware, software and services apart.' 'Bill Gates and I agree that within four to five years hardware will be free.' We've recently read here on /. how Gates thinks hardware will be free."
As long as they're giving hardware away, I'll take a Cisco CRS-1 router and a Beowulf cluster of GeForce 6800s.
I'll expect to take delivery of this equipment right after my Triphibian Atomicar rolls off the transporter from Swift Enterprises.
Seriously... a couple of years ago, Sun was telling us we'd all be running on glorified VT100 terminals. At what point do these clowns lose all credibility?
I think cars will be free too.
We will just pay for gas and service.
I think Sun stock will be "free" too, if you know what I mean.
Back it up. Just a little more... A little more... Perfect!
Now, Honey, don't you think that E15K makes a great replacement for that china cabinet we used to have? And all I had to do was purchase a software license for StarOffice!
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
Step 1: Sun gives out hardware for free with Microsoft and Sun proprietary software
Step 2: Large numbers of businesses, who would pay for software anyway, get new free great DRM hardware.
Step 3: These same large businesses now throw out all of their old, non-DRM, non-Compatible hardware.
Step 4: Geeks like us go dumpster diving in a sea of free hardware.
Step 5: Install OSS on free hardware.
Step 6: ?
Step 7: Profit!!!!!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Actually it is probably part of Sun's new exit strategy (err I mean market plan):
1. Release free hardware with software subscription.
2. People put Linux on it.
3. File bankruptcy!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Intel announces software, not hardware will be free.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
(Reuters)
A leading bicycle manufacturer announced today that, in the future, bicycles will be free but people will have to pay for the oxygen they'd breathe while biking.
Advertisement:
[Kids, steal money from your parents and buy Nike brand oxygen. Only Nike oxygen delivers the charge you need to push the limit.]
This announcement follows a call by several right-wing thinktanks for a transition from a manufacture-based to a service-based economy.
A number of South American and African nations, who have finally developed a manufacturing sector of their own in spite of IMF loans going primarily to resource extraction are not expected to follow the advice in the near future.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
"You can't afford $1 a day?" he said.
"No," she said, "I can't afford $365 per year."
So much for his commission on a $1,300 vacuum.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
And at the end of your lifetime, you will still own nothing.
Which is not necessarily a deal-breaker, seeing as how I'll be dead and all.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.