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."

Comments

Re:Free Market

[Anne Thwacks]

I don't know which country that is, but here in the UK, leasing is popular, because the tax structure is massively rigged in its favour. If you have a car on a company lease, you effectively avoid taxes of 30%, and possibly considerably more.

Re:A return to the old phone company

[Grishnakh]

I was very young at that time, but I think consumers got fed up with the situation where they could only have one phone in the entire house, or had to pay hefty monthly fees for additional phones. I believe this spurred the government to change the law so that property owners owned the lines inside their houses (previously, Ma Bell owned the actual wiring, even though it was inside your walls!), and could purchase their own phones if they wanted.

Re:A return to the old phone company

[Anonymous Coward]

The government mandated it with the breakup of the "Ma Bell" single phone company. Part of their monopoly was with service, so they split into the "Baby Bells" regionally, then had to allow competition later within those markets. The other part of the monopoly was in physical equipment. You weren't allowed to connect a non-Bell phone to your line. They had a proprietary connector, which they had to replace with the RJ45 jacks everyone has now. That standard jack allowed citizens (aka consumers - I hate that term!) to connect phones made by anyone.

Re:A return to the old phone company

[EisPick]

The monopoly mentality in hardware lived long past Western Electric's demise. I remember working at a convention in NYC in 1992. The convention contracted with NYNEX to supply telephones. The NYNEX/CWA phone techs broke the ends off the release tabs on the RJ-45 wiring after plugging them in, under the misconception that this would keep "civicians" from moving "their" telephones. Oh, and there really weren't proprietary connetors. While there was a big, clunky 4-prong plug for some phones, most were hard wired into the wall in those days. And those rental phones were built to last. Made of heavy Bakelite plastic (or something similar), they probably could survive a 30-foot drop. And if anything ever went bad, you just called for a free replacement.

Re:A return to the old phone company

[Smallpond]

Carterphone sued to be able to connect customer-owned equipment to the telephone network. Once that sailed through the courts (heh) the market was opened up for cheap phone equipment.