You gotta hand it to those folks over at Sun. They sure know how to rev up the PR engines with in-your-face performances from McNealy & Co. Whether it's bashing Microsoft or bashing Microsoft--and whether you agree with them or not--they're always a lot of fun and manage to stir up the waters enough to get the attention of their rivals.
Such was the case with Sun's recent announcement that it's getting into the Linux desktop game. But amid the histrionics, the announcement was couched in enough equivocation to make one wonder just exactly what Sun's going to do. To be sure, it was yet another swipe at arch nemesis Microsoft and the skeptics among us might say that Sun's just trying to cash in on the recently revived interest in Linux desktops.
Sun's plan is to offer x86-based Linux machines built using off-the-shelf parts (put together in somebody else's garage, not Sun's) which will be sold in lots of 100. The generic hardware is complemented by a mostly generic array of Linux desktop software. The catch--besides having to buy these boxes in bunches of 100--is that you have to buy a server to go with them. So, essentially, Sun is ready to sell you 100 low-cost razors if you buy one of their blades.
At first blush, the new plan looks a lot like JavaStation, The Sequel. But it is, in fact, quite different. This isn't another thin client foray; Sun's "purple boxes" will be chubby enough to run just fine even when they're disconnected from the server. The JavaStation, running JavaOS, relied on the server for its apps and storage.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the plan is a smart-card-based security system that uses Sun's Java Card technology. Users' IDs and authentication data are stored on personal cards which can be inserted in any of the purple boxes connected to the server; the cards validate the users' identities and download their settings and access rights.
Cool cards aside, the whole deal strikes me as odd, at best. Sun sees this as an opportunity in a wide-open market, but depending on the definition of exactly what market we're talking about, it doesn't seem to be a "can't lose" proposition, as it was described by another Sun spokesman.
Think about it: If it really is so wide-open and so darned winnable, why hasn't any other vendor jumped in--especially those that have experience selling desktop machines? Dell has dabbled, as have most of the other major PC vendors, but none has lingered long in Linux land. In fact, the only major U.S. company to date that has committed to selling Linux boxes is a retailer--a really huge retailer: Wal-Mart. So will that put Sun in direct competition with Wal-Mart, going toe to toe with Sam's Club?
And I can think of lot of reasons why the plan can tank. Just how good are the odds when you're rolling your company's dice in a game that's essentially brand new to you. That might put Sun in a marketplace that's not only rapidly contracting, but one in which it concedes a head start of 10 years or more to the current leaders.
Given the shrinking size of the PC market and the notoriously low margins from which--arguably--only one vendor, Dell, has figured out how to squeeze respectable profits, the opportunities seem to be slim and none. Just look at some of the other established players: HP/Compaq is struggling, and the rumors of IBM quitting the PC market altogether surface regularly.
Sun might produce a ton of software, but--bottom line--it's a hardware company. It's hard to conceive how a company that's built a solid reputation on turning out reliable high-end hardware will distinguish itself by selling somebody else's hardware. And it's not even likely to be very interesting hardware, as Linux's requirements are very modest.
I know some industry analysts, while not necessarily embracing Sun's plan, are giving it a chance to succeed. Sun could well succeed at selling some servers by throwing in a lot of low-end boxes, but there's little that's compelling about Sun's proposed desktops. Hooked into the network and with the smart card security, they'll make nice terminals. And while Sun says the desktop boxes will be fully functional even when disconnected from the server, they'll come with pretty much the same software routinely included with most popular Linux distributions. That means you won't be able to do all that much with these PCs--and you'll certainly struggle to keep up with the functionality of most Windows PCs.
Sun is one of the industry's major players, and one of the major supporters of open-source development. And with it seeming to warm up to Linux of late, I suppose that more might've been expected if Sun really wanted to take the lead in the cause of Linux on the desktop. A hundred purple boxes with minimal software tossed into a server sale won't move the marker very much.
From the desktop perspective, there's not much innovation to be found in Sun's announcement. There's really no secret to what will give Linux a fighting chance to stake out some of the corporate desktop turf: It's full-featured, compatible business productivity software. Sun's right--Microsoft might be more vulnerable right now than it has been in years. Tech managers would embrace a reasonable alternative to the Windows-with-Office fare. But slapping the open-source version of StarOffice and Mozilla and a few other tidbits here and there onto a box just ain't gonna cut it.
I think there are a lot of people out there just waiting for Sun to put its considerable talents to the task of creating the software that will make Linux a true alternative. It seems that Sun, with StarOffice already in its portfolio, with unassailable programming chops in the "-ix" environment, and a big axe to grind when it comes to Microsoft, is just the company to do something really significant to promote the Linux desktop.
Do we really need another white--or purple or any color--box vendor? Sun's plan doesn't strike me as a strategic move, but rather yet another anti-Microsoft action--especially in light of Windows' success in slicing itself a big chunk of the departmental server pie.
Does Sun's announcement warrant strapping on a drum and banging away as McNealy did at the recent SunNetwork 2002 Conference? Probably not, but then again, you get the feeling that McNealy would probably bang a big drum just to announce his arrival at the breakfast table. Let's just hope the next time Sun comes to the table with a pitch for desktop Linux they arrive with a little more for us to chew on.
Do you think Sun's plan will help promote Linux on the desktop? TalkBack below or e-mail Rich.
