Sun Microsystems... I'm really begining to like them.

The Mullinator

The Mullinator

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As alot of you probably know the company Sun Microsystems will soon be releasing a Linux based OS that will probably be the closest thing to a rival of windows than anything else. On top of that it is significantly cheaper than windows AND it is shipping with its own software suite that will work with anything in the windows software suite. So lets say you make an MSWord document, you can then open and edit the document using the Sun Microsystem Word Processor.

Here are some articles.
http://news.com.com/2100-1010_3-5077619.html
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/6782110.htm

So what does everyone think about this? Will they be succesful? Will they crash and burn?

Discuss...
 
i think it aims for companys and commercial applications for companys. it bases on linux, so it still aint a good base for games. but it's a beginning.

i hate having to pay like 100-200 bucks for a unstable pos (win95-me) or os which give ms more control over my pc than to me. (longhorn?)
 
Well it's interesting reading that McNealy is saying everyone is paying too much for computers. Sun Systems are one of the expensive systems out there. Did you know that to ship/move high end systems you HAVE to pay Sun to package and unpackage all Sun Servers or the warranty is void and they won't service them. And the cost of that packaging is VERY expensive ($1,000's per server). While SUn has powerful systems, their sales have been cut because Linux/Apache on general Intel hardware is a helluva lot cheaper than SUn/Apache. So they got their "desktop" strategy from how the competition was stealing their server market.

As to the maintenance of a complex environment, this is true of all vendors, hardware and software. If something simply works then it doesn't need a whole giant company of professional services. I think SUN is just as guilty as IBM there. Except IBM is bigger and has fingers in more pies.

And I'll throw caution to the wind and say the initiative will fail. For a corporate program, manageability and compatibility is key. Imagine rolling out 500 of these, then finding the companies intranet requires the new 6.5 Internet Explorer to be installed. Oops, SUn's desktop don't implement that newfangled OCX feature of 6.5. Guess you'll have to wait for SUn to duplicate it in Java-or never. You only need one such incompatibility to throw the entire plan out of whack. You never know what will be required on a desktop. Offering OFFICE compatibility is good, but the typically business user also need Acrobat. HOw about Netmeeting for teleconferences. I've worked for media companies where Real Player needs to be on every desktop-the company releases video announcements and taped teleconferences through streaming media. Utilities like Winzip are hard to live without and then there is a corporate Antivirus strategy...will the company's investment in Norton or McAfee be able to operate on these Java desktops? How about SMS or other management platform...pushing out an update to 3000 PCs is useful automation when it works. Will these PC be compatible with Microsoft's DOmain and Active Directory technology? because if people can't login to the J: drive they won't have any documents to open with the Java Office product. Will the desktop support native Windows DOmain logins--which is the centerpiece of a companies security?

I would bet most of these areas would be show stoppers once a technical person got involved in analyzing the impact of switching.

Also, How many have worked with programs completely written in JAVA. I mean a full commercial program, all java- Nortel's Optivity comes to mind. They suck. Let's put aside a general performance drag when compared to native Windows. They lack the entire Windows programming interface, the finesse of mouse focus vs cursor focus, accelerator keys, default actions, double-click, singleclick, drag-and-drop. All these things are so commonplace in every aspect of a WIndows program we don't even recognize that they must be programmed. Java programs always lack this, here's a simple example-just multiple this by 100.

A login screen pops up USERNAME field, PASSWORD field, and a LOGIN button.

If you were in windows your would type your name TAB password and hit ENTER.

With a typical Java program you would have to take the mouse and click into the USERNAME field (the cursor focus would not be there automatically) you would type your name. Then because TAB and ENTER don't work, use the mouse again to click in password. Type password. Then use mouse again to click LOGIN.

The basics of the Windows dialog box need to be recreated down to these tiny, insignificant but time wasting details.
 
What about games? I mean, thats why I still use windows, GTA, Unreal, Half Life....
 
That's the only reason why people use Windows isn't it? :p I guess it's also because there are a lot of Microsoft developers working on MS *only* languages and need to use the special IDE's that go with them (think Visual Studio .NET 2003).

I've used Linux, and it's not bad at all, except it's not really for the people who are "using Windows and the next minute using Red Hat" like me. It's great for servers though :D
 
i think people have it wrong about linux and games...

linux would be great for games due to stability. pretty much the only reason it sucks for games is because of combatibility (sp?). many games dont work with linux (not compatible), but if they did, they would run probally better than on windows.

imo i love linux, it just really needs more combatiblity ;\
 
I just hope that Sun becomes very succesful with this. Its about time Microsoft started having some commercial competetion with its OS's.
 
Hmmm the only thing I know about Sun Microsystems is umm... well I have a bag with their logo on it...
 
The only thing I know about Sun Microsystems is that it is constantly spiraling downwards in a plume of flame and smoke.
 
Originally posted by Tr0n
What you think I will fall for that?Why would the drew show have a linux picture?
Click to expand...

Just click on it, the picture is hilarious for this situation.
 
Oh what the fans do for an autograph......
 
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