McNealy had said last month that Sun was planning to offer a Linux PC to compete with Microsoft, but he offered further details this week at the SunNetwork 2002 conference in the US. McNealy disclosed that Sun will sell the PC hardware as well as the software--calling the system a "purple box," a phrase that applies his company's trademark product hue to the "white box" term for generic PCs.
Not everyone will want one of the Sun products, McNealy said. "It's a very compelling, if limited, market opportunity today," he said. Sun plans to aim the product at "limited-use environments", including education, government, retail, banking, and corporate call centres, staffed with those answering phones.
In those environments, "We think we can give you half the cost at acquisition and maybe even more stunning operating (cost) advantages" compared with Windows, McNealy said.
Sun is seeking manufacturing and sales partners to help in the PC plan, called Project Mad Hatter, said Sun Software Executive Vice President Jonathan Schwartz.
The Sun PC is the company's latest and most direct effort to undermine its longtime nemesis, Microsoft. In the past, Sun has tried to use its "write once, run anywhere" Java programming language to get developers to create software that can work on any computer, not just those running the Windows OS. More recently, Sun has tried to propagate its Sun Ray "thin client" workstations, which rely on a central server's processing power.
None of these efforts has succeeded in denting Microsoft's dominance. The JavaStation, a desktop computer touted by Sun in the late 90s, generated lots of news stories but almost no sales. One key problem with the JavaStation and other thin clients is that they aren't independent computers. The hard drives, personal data, and applications are all stored on servers. If the servers go down, the desktops become paperweights.
Selling its own desktops is crucial to Sun's success. Several companies are currently promoting Linux desktop operating systems, but few desktop manufacturers promote Linux desktops. Sun executives have also said that the promotional "soft dollars" that PC makers and dealers get from Microsoft and Intel prevent these companies from veering from the Windows way. PC manufacturers, though, say little customer interest exists for Linux desktops at the moment. Even PC dealers in China that sell both Windows and Linux desktops say interest is limited.
Sun's desktop systems will use the Linux operating system, along with a collection of other software from the open-source community and technology taken from the Sun Ray products. Like the Sun Rays, the Sun desktop computers will include smart-card readers for making the login process more secure, McNealy said.
McNealy also described plans for the company's traditional focus, higher-end servers and storage systems. Sun plans to pool these systems into a single computing resource under a plan called N1.
"We'll be doing things in the acquisition space," buying companies or technology to make the N1 vision a reality, McNealy said.
In addition, McNealy discussed planned improvements for Solaris, Sun's version of the Unix operating system, that highlight Sun's belief that higher-level software features will "sediment" into the operating system.
In May, Sun began bundling server software features with its Solaris operating system, McNealy said. The move will extend what Sun did with its new Solaris 9, bundling an application server for running sophisticated Internet services, firewall software to keep unauthorised users out and a basic directory server to manage information such as username-password combinations.
McNealy hinted that new additions could include its portal server software for building Web sites for specific groups of people, its e-mail software for routing messages, its calendar software for keeping track of users' schedules and Web services features for building business processes with next-generation Internet communications standards.
"There are all kinds of products that are going to get integrated," McNealy said.
Sun has shipped 300,000 copies of Solaris 9 so far, McNealy said.
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Pretty cool. Competition can only help the consumer. It will be interesting to see what Sun can come up with in such a crowded market. Hopefully they will take advantage of the popularity of small PC form factors such as the Shuttle SFF series and come out with something similar. Suitcase sized beige PC's that hog your desktop just don't make sense.