Sun Steps Back from Linux JDS

chill writes "ZD Net UK is reporting that Sun is pulling back from their JDS desktop Linux initiative. The big question is what happened to those half-million to million-plus units that were supposed to ship in China in 2004? One hint may be that in April, Novell announced a deal with CSSC to 'cooperate to provide technology, services and marketing to optimise and promote Linux to the Chinese market.' Sun's JDS was based on SUSE Linux, now owned by Novell."

Comments

Re:This was inevitable

[AKAImBatman]

Sun developing for linux is ultimately counterproductive to its own long term future.

That's not entirely true. Sun's strategy has always been to sell hardware and complete solutions. It really doesn't matter to them if they're selling Linux or Solaris. In fact, long before JDS they provided an option to preload RedHat on many of their systems. Why anyone would chose RedHat over Solaris for a server system is beyond me, but a lot of customers were demanding it.

All the JDS is lacking is a true follow through. This half-assed release-it-and-then-drop-it strategy is guaranteed failure.