InfoWorld: Sun mounts attack on desktop

"Sun will pull a one-two punch on the corporate client market over the next two weeks by announcing both software and hardware moves to challenge the Wintel stronghold of commercial desktops.

On Tuesday in New York, Sun is expected to announce the acquisition of Star Division and its StarOffice 5.1 suite of Java-based productivity applications and will add them to Sun's growing arsenal of "dot-com" products for ISPs, application service providers (ASPs), and enterprises, according to sources."

"The company will follow its Star acquisition with the announcement of its latest play in the thin-client hardware market. Twice knocked down in the thin-client market but not out of contention, Sun on Sept. 8 will unveil a new 'information appliance' that sheds the Java-only mentality of its previous workstations."

"Sources said Sun will position the new models as front ends for ASPs, processing, and call center operations. New Mexico Mutual Casualty is testing the appliances for claims processing. Litton Data Systems, Bell Atlantic, British Telecommunications, and the U.S. Navy's San Diego-based software development unit are also beta deployers. Those users declined interview requests."

" 'I'm excited about the possibility of Sun offering this as a chunk of software that every appliance [server vendor] can offer. That's what they intend to do,' said Kimball Brown, an analyst at Dataquest..."

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• Reuters: Sun Micro to buy Microsoft Office competitor Star(Aug 31, 1999)
• InfoWorld: Sun to acquire StarOffice for hosted applications(Aug 29, 1999)
• osOpinion: Why Sun Bought Star Division(Aug 26, 1999)
• IT-Director: Sunrise for the Java Office(Aug 24, 1999)
• Silicon.com: Sun banks on Linux option for thin client success(Aug 24, 1999)
• ZDNN: IBM, Sun kill JavaOS for business(Aug 22, 1999)
• CNET News.com: Sun buys Microsoft Office competitor(Aug 20, 1999)