“In May or June next year Sun will ship desktop computers running Linux, the open source Mozilla web browser, email program Evolution and Sun’s StarOffice application suite. The desktops, being created under “Project Mad Hatter”, will also ship with the open source WINE emulator program, allowing them to run Windows applications, and Samba, providing access to networked file and print services.” Read the article at ComputerWorld. On Tuesday, OSNews will publish an exclusive article with more information on Solaris, Linux and Sun’s plans for the desktop. Stay tuned for more.
Sun Flies Desktop Linux Kite
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Why is Sun going to ship Linux desktops? This cannot be a high profit endeavor. It will require a lot of effort for Sun to build a desktop business. It is not even a core competency at Sun. Who would want a desktop from Sun? I cannot think of anyone other than a few geeks. And they would want a workstation, not a desktop.
Their server business — i.e. their real business — is at risk. They need to focus 100% on the next generation of servers. Otherwise Sun is gone.
Sun has never made any money in “desktops”. What sort of Kool Aid are they are drinking over there?
RP
You get this feeling Sun has no plans at all. No vision, nothing articulate. Just being reactionary, arguing about everything, and hating Microsoft, can only take you so far.
>Why is Sun going to ship Linux desktops?
Please await for our article on Tuesday. It will answer a lot of your questions and it will clear up what Sun is trying to achieve with the Linux desktops. I have the scoop on it. 😉
My understanding (having skimmed an article in Linux Format)is that they are using linux desktops to sell sun servers (ie they are bundling server, desktops and linux).
Hopefully Eugenia’s scoop will clarify.
Matt
Pretty close. 😉
What distro?
Red Hat.
Please use sensible headers on the comments so we can reply with ease.
I believe it is a modified version of Red Hat Linux.
Why don’t they do the same with Solaris ??? That’s bizarre …
Who would want a desktop from Sun? I cannot think of anyone other than a few geeks.
I maintain a network of Sun desktop systems.
Interesting shift of perspectives… I thought Sun was trying to compete with Microsoft? Why are they competing with Lindows now?
I hope Sun doesn’t get it’s priorities confused?
–2 cents
Expect them to die in 2 decades. Their main market is the servers. Yet they are letting it slip to their competitors, specifically to IBM instead of putting on a fight.
It is unlikely Project Madhatter would yield good results, financially, to Sun. They are much better off now slowly killing SPARC and replacing it with Itanium. At least then it can compete better with IBM. Let Solaris go and use Linux as much as you can too.
Why Itanium? Well, because it is supported by HP, SGI and a tonne of smaller companies. Sun would be riding their wave. Meaning though matter how much money Sun makes from Itanium machines, R&D would go at full speed.
The desktop isn’t profitable, unless they are targeting niches (unlikely at this point, after reading the article). It would only serve to annoy Microsoft. Stop annoying them and start shoring up your competitive egde.
People won’t buy a cheaper machine when they can’t work on it, no?
Being a big fan of kites, take a look at http://www.gombergkites.com. Penguin inflatables.
They are going to try and use Red Hat desktops to sell Sun servers?
Is there no reason anymore to have a Sun server other than to manage custom Red Hat Sun desktops?
Lets say I buy lots of Intel-based Red Hat desktops. Why would I ever want to go and purchase extremely expensive Sun SPARC servers? Because their sales rep is giving me kick backs? Why not buy some cheap Red Hat Intel servers?
Yikes. Sun cannot compete on price. The desktop market is largely a price-driven market.
The irony is that Sun doesn’t need to sell their own desktops to implement a Linux client friendly strategy.
That’s the difference between “hardware mentality” and “software mentality”. Microsoft solves the problem in software. Sun thinks they need to go and build their own desktops.
What a bunch of morons.
It’s not that stupid. MS competes on the basis of interoperability and a unified desktop. Currently one of the complaints about linux is the lack of a unified and prepackaged interoperable server/desktop. If sun puts the whole package together, they might be able to compete with MS on the basis of both interoperability and a unified desktop together with price.
If sun just covers its costs on the desktops, and can sell a server bundle at a price point less than the combined MS cost of server and desktops, then they may have a saleable product, and you’d get a much more powerful server than an intel based server running MS Windows2000 or .Net.
It sounds alright in theory.
Matt
Microsoft is a software company. They do not build desktops. There is a giant multi-billion dollar infrastructure in place to build PC desktops. Sun has nothing that compares to the giant system that exists to build PC’s. Just Intel itself makes Sun look like a little company.
If Sun were really an open standards company (vs. just giving open standards lip service), they would not need to build their own desktop. They’d build server software and open client-server standards that any Linux desktop machine could use.
However, the biggest stumbling block for Linux is the lack of business apps, not the lack of client-server interoperability.
There is no way Sun can outcompete Dell, HP, etc., when it comes to PC’s. And once you factor in white box PC’s… Sun has no way to compete on price.
All in all, it seems Sun has no viable software strategy. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out “we need to build Linux PC’s” is a giant waste.
Why should I buy an EXPENSIVE Sun SPARC server again? The reason better not be because I bought a bunch of EXPENSIVE Sun SPARC PC’s… and if Sun builds Intel PC’s… they are open to direct price competition from the giant PC industry.
Sun doesn’t get hardware. It’s supposed to get cheaper over time. Moore’s Law. Oh that’s right… Sun doesn’t believe in that sort of stuff.
Hasta la vista, Sun.
I guess you don’t keep track of the Ultra Sparc IV and Ultra Sparc V?
Put it this way. Itanium gives less bang for the buck than any other CPU. Heck! Itanium even make the PPC used by Apple as good value!
The main performance needed by servers is Integer performance, that is where Itanium is JUST on par with the “legacy x86”. Sure, if you’re looking at graphics manipulation and raw number crunching, then Itanium will suite the purpose. Also, add ontop of that they chagr $4000 for a CPU that has less ISV support than the Power4, PA-RISC, Sparc or MIPS, and to top it all off, vastly more expensive that the chips it is trying to compete with, I don’t see why you keep dragging up the subject of the Itanium?
You really are naive. Name on thing that SUN doesn’t embrace which is openstandards. In fact, name one thing they DO embrace that is proprietary?
Solaris, UNIX 98 Compliant, POSIX compliant, NFS v4 and v3 compliant, X11 compliant etc etc. The list goes on and on and on.
As for their hardware. OpenBoot, fully openstandards. You want the specs? jump over to the SUN documentation server, which covers not only SUN workstations, but every UNIX station that supports the OpenBoot specification. SBUS, already been standardised.
Red Pill, use some real facts instead of taking the same pathetic swipe as people like you would against Apple. Unlike SUN, the technologies they have developed are first proprietary, then later Standardised by a OpenStandards body. The only technology I could possibly think of where SUN has held back is Java, and even so, the Java community process is still a very effective tool in the development and future direction of Java.
I don’t think Sun will make the PCs itself, it buys the distro from RedHat, hardware from some Taiwanese OEM PC manufacturer and laps its own logo on top of it. That shouldn’t get too expensive.
Let’s wait and see if Sun’s promise about 50% price cut stays, no reason not to, not really.
In general this is just one of the many moves to make a Linux desktop truly available. This one won’t change much, but together with countless other moves it makes a difference.
Well, I want to read Eugenia’s full scoop on this. Sun has seemed to be floundering around and, at first glance, this also seems like a continuation of that. However, maybe not. The devil will be in the details. It’s funny, Sun has no experience selling desktops. These things are going to have to be pretty inexpensive – not something Sun is used to 🙂
Modified Red Hat – that’s intriuging.
LOL, I don’t think they’ll be competing with Lindows. By the way, Lindows just made their big announcement (at least through email) for the premiere of 3.0 and everything associated with it.
Matthew Gardiner is a tool
Could you please get rid of this little write-off who calls himself: Jerk (IP: —.ncf.coxexpress.com)
Maybe he should have some real balls and use his REAL email address and REAL name, instead of being some punk ass little teenage tosser living in his mum and dads garden shed.
Who would want a desktop from Sun? I cannot think of anyone other than a few geeks. And they would want a workstation, not a desktop.
At my old University we had over 300 Sun Desktops + thinclients (sunray). And there were used by everybody, not only geeks…
If Sun were really an open standards company (vs. just giving open standards lip service), they would not need to build their own desktop. They’d build server software and open client-server standards that any Linux desktop machine could use.
What utter bullshit! Sun is the most open-standards compliant company there is. They developed tons of technologies and protocols now used all over the internet and in corporate networks. If you have NIS, NIS+, NFS and rpc running on Linux, it’s because of Sun. Their CPU architecture is OPEN! http://www.sparc.com That means, it’s an open architecture just as the Linux kernel is, they even accept suggestions and improvements from members.
Sun is even a great proponent of open source: they did open source OpenOffice, you know? They also did open the source of Solaris. It’s not GPL but it is, indeed, opensource.
Want more? Solaris comes with many GNU utilities installed by default. It also installs Apache by default. Sun is also an important contributor to Tomcat.
And with all this I didn’t even make half justice to all that is open in Sun.And all this is supposedly well known. I just wonder how do wooden heads like you just keep popping up.
Sun Linux + GNOME + Evolution + Netscape/Mozilla + StarOffice
are enough for typical user in any enterprise.
In many case, nowaday applications are web-based,
so OS + webbrowser are more than enough for these “single-task” operator (imagine those officers in bank, or postal office).
I think these desktop areas will be the area that Sun Desktop aiming for.
Not and never desktop of home user.
Desktop is not just home use.
and of course, Sun’s Desktop (client) together with Sun’s Server will be a solution that can fight with those companies who has both desktop & server .. e.g. HPQ, IBM, Dell, etc.
Sun means quality people. The quality of their hw and services has been proven in server side for years. Computers are not only for houses. In computer labs, or firms, buying desktops from Sun makes sense if the price is not very absurd.
We had Sun and PC computer labs at university. Now, all the PCs are replaced three times. All the sun machines are still there. Some had problems, the related department called the Sun service, and they were very happy with the excellent support.
I think Sun made a good decision. It will also increase usage of Linux. Although I prefer BSD rather than Linux systems, it is certainly better than the biggest virus ever written: Windows.
Quite off-the-topic.
I think i used to see one news here in osnews.com about Sun’s Software VP give an interview about future version of Solaris may even LSB (Linux Standard Base) complaint. This may confirmed the open standard vision of Sun.
Sun may or may not have a good idea with these Linux desktops.
What matters is financial stability. Why has SUNW been *downgraded* consistently over the last 18 months? Have any of you actually read their financials from last year? //shudder//
Wall Street has zero confidence in Sun. Not that it’s the end-all factor, but I wouldn’t spend my boss’s money in such a company.
We’ll see. Doesn’t look good.
Bact: Agreed regarding “all that an enterprise desktop needs” — just the other day in the OSNews Gartner report thread I was saying the same thing. The one thing you forgot to mention: Java.
Matthew Gardiner is just a worthless troll. He post negative comments on just about every thread.
Get a life dude…..you’ll post one thing then a completely different thing about the same topics…..my guess is you have multiple personalities.
Also…dont you work at a gateway country store? 🙂
I think you are the troll, not Matthew. Though we rarely agree on anything, I don’t consider him a troll. What I would call a troll is someone who post something flamebaitish and wouldn’t take the effort to prove it, or someone who says “LiNuX SuXxxxx w00t!” or similar, or someone who attacks someone else in a middle of a debate, especially with no form of optional identication (nick/name, email addy?).
One thing I notice about Gardiner is he is always consistent about his comments. Read it carefully, he isn’t the best writer (neither am I).
Sorry to burst your bubble but he is not consistent it what he says in any way….also I could really give a rats ass if you think he is a troll or not.
” Why Itanium? Well, because it is supported by HP, SGI and atonne of smaller companies. Sun would be riding their wave. Meaning though matter how much money Sun makes from Itanium machines, R&D would go at full speed.”
well, because “itanic” performs like a ship that hit an iceberg…
As for Sun: maybe they can score points on “integration”. Lots of losers stick with MSFT not of mere stupidity, but because of the full range of integrated services. Like Exchange. If Sun gives companies a bunch of stuff (office package/ email services /file servers) thatg save tons of money vs comparable microsuck products, they may have a play. Sun MAYY be able to do this because they have cred.
HP can’t– they are so mismanaged they are on the way out.
IBM CLAIMS to like LINUX, but with them the customer is always right. They let ccustomers fall into the Windows tar pit without encouraging them enough to better themselves with LINUX. IBM = miminal vision.
At least you gotta hand Sun the vision thing. If it wasn’t for Sun there would be no Java.
Forgive my ignorance… Maybe Sun is just too 1337 for me so I wouldn’t know about it, but how can you admin Sun desktops if there are no such things around up until now in the first place..? I never heared of there being Sun-desktops before…
I was part of the layoffs at Sun last week, but have some insight into this project:
The desktop initiative looks like this: Sun will OEM an x86 desktop-class machine (not sure on the form factor, but probably quite small) and load Sun Linux and a bunch of applications (GNOME, StarOffice, Evolution, Java, Mozilla, WINE, Samba, etc). It will have Java card capabilities for authentication a la SunRay.
Back-end Sun server(s) for kickstart/ configuration purposes, central file/email/etc server, and/or portal, messaging, etc. Server size depends on deployment size.
The systems will be leased in lots of 100, so that the company using these basically pays a monthly per-seat fee (think of your cellphone for a similar analogy), enabling technology refreshes, etc. Supported by a regular service contract.
The target market is large deployments (call centers, gov’t, education, etc), NOT the average small business, home user, etc.
THere have been sun desktops for years. They called them Unix workstations and have sold them for awhile at the insane price of about $999 for many of the Sunblade models. Worked on one at the last place I was at.
I know Sun has had that Blade for $999 for some time but, if you wanted to add RAM or other things, it got expensive real fast. I wonder if these desktops might have the same form factor as those low end Blades?
“Who would want a desktop from Sun? I cannot think of anyone other than a few geeks”
I support the software for the GUI system for the Canadian portion of the North American of the 1-800 telephone system.
All we use are Sun desktops and servers. Linux was just an infant when this system was first built.
It would cost a ton of money (millions) to redevelop it for deployment on Linux.
I don’t know if they employ full time Employees for hacking GTK in general. I can say that since at least the year 2000 Sun employees have periodicly announced a new accessibility feature for Gnome; they seem to be working with Xiaman in that area. Their accessibility work is of course so that Gnome can be accepted for govrenment use. They do contribute to free software projects, and in areas where the average free software developer has no interest.
RE: @ bascule
http://www.sun.com/desktop/
re: Sun has been contribuiting to Gnome for a few years
Arn’t they moving from The Uglyness That Is CDE to Gnome?[1]
bah, OpenWin forever!
[1] Yeah yeh, back up my statments, Uglyness is subjective, and IMO Win95, CDE and Win3.11 are all (equally) ugly.
I’d say you’re the troll. A person who doesn’t want to back up his own comments with a real name and a real email address. I’ve posted my real name and real email address. Anyone can contact me ANY TIME they feel the need to. Unlike you, I don’t feel the need to be Mr 007, secret squirl, troll of osnews.com.
How about stick to those windows forums where you piss at each other on how you hooked up an endothermic reactor to your overclocked P4 and felt really l33t when Windows XP was able to boot up.
The cost to upgrade the memory isn’t that expensive. It takes standard ECC DIMMS. The only downside is that you invalidate your warrenty if you install non-SUN parts, however, depending on what SUN is like in your country, 99% of the time, they don’t give a toss whether or not you have added stuff to it.
Now, if you get the memory installed at configuration time, then, that is a different story as SUN tends to go for the most expensive supplier. Gods knows why? its only a workstation, no really mission critical.
As for the costs. SUN needs to ditch Texas Instruments and get UMC and TSMC to do their chip production. Both companies have the capacity and economies of scale to bring down the cost of the chips. Right now, the most expensive part of a SUN machine is the CPU, pretty much everything else is standard componentry.