“Tomorrow, Sun will unveil the Sun Ray, a desktop computer unit
designed to encourage companies to abandon traditional PCs in favor
of cheap, simple ‘thin clients’ that shove most of the heavy
lifting to centralized server computers. … Sun’s first thin
client computer, the JavaStation, flopped quite publicly two years
ago, hampered by dropping PC prices, numerous product delays, and
slow Java performance, the programming language used by the
computer.”
“Sun believes things will be different this time with
its new thin client, code-named Corona. For one thing, with the
acquisition of Star Division, Sun now has an office software
suite that runs on central servers and that can be accessed by
desktop users. In another new twist, this time Sun will lease
the device instead of sell it to customers. The Sun Ray
appliance can be leased for $9.99 per month over five years…”
“The thin client market will get another shot in the arm
tomorrow when IBM announces two new thin clients, one of which will
be based on Intel chips–a first for Big Blue…”
“Sun’s thin client is part of the company’s new Hot Desk
concept, which allows people to tie into applications on Sun
servers or other back-end machines, including legacy mainframes or
Windows NT machines. HotDesk also comes coupled with a smart card
system for remote computing. By plugging a smart card into a Hot
Desk-enabled machine on a network, a user’s identity, work in
progress, and computer desktop can essentially be transported from
one machine to another.”