“Industry observers joke that Sun Microsystems CEO Scott
McNealy?s goal in life seems to be the downfall of
Microsoft.”
“Now, with a suite of recently announced products that
strikes at the heart of Microsoft?s core businesses, McNealy may
have the arsenal and the opportunity to make some real headway
in his often quixotic struggle. Those products include a new
‘open-source’ microchip; the Sun Ray 1 ‘thin client’ desktop; and
the free StarOffice package of office software programs.”
“Last month, Sun announced it would produce a new microchip
called MAJC that will serve as a flexible, high-powered processor
to be used on its own in lightweight devices or in conjunction with
SPARC microprocessors…”
“The idea of the ‘thin client’… is to keep heavy, intensive
computing off the desktop and on the server. … And it obviates
the need for a bunch of Windows NT seat licenses.”
“Finally, in order to bolster the use of its hardware and take
away from one of Microsoft?s primary cash cows, Sun recently
purchased the independent Star Division Corp. and now offers the
StarOffice office software suite free on CD-ROM and via the
Web.”