SRO: Sun Takes Another Shot At The PC Sep 8, 1999, 05 :11 UTC (5 Talkback[s]) (5614 reads) (Other stories by Deborah Gage)
"Sun Microsystems Inc. will re-enter the sub-PC market
this week with Sun Ray 1, an 'enterprise appliance'
that is a complete redesign of Sun's beleaguered
JavaStation.
Sun is positioning Sun Ray as a disposable appliance,
like the telephone, that requires no software upgrades
and no changes to existing applications. In fact, Sun
Ray (formerly code-named Corona) runs no local
software at all. It plugs into the network through a
10/100Mb Ethernet connection and has a smart card
reader for users to identify themselves. Once identified,
users can access their software desktops from
anywhere on the network, even breaking off sessions
and resuming them from another location."
"Sun distinguished engineer J. Duane Northcutt stresses
that Sun Ray is neither an X terminal nor a Windows
Based Terminal. The difference: Sun Ray has no local
software and requires no desktop configuration or
management. Northcutt says the closest competitor to
Sun Ray is an IBM 3270 terminal--except that Sun Ray
has multimedia and centralized display rendering
capabilities."
"Sun plans to make its Hot Desk protocol--which
handles initialization, datagram-based commands such
as rendering and error handling, and connection-based
commands such as authentication and USB
peripherals--available for license so companies can offer
their own Hot Desk appliances. Northcutt says Sun will
also approach IBM about supporting HotDesk."
