Writes NYT on Sun’s embrace of Linux: “The company will introduce its LX50 server on the opening day of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, which starts on Monday in San Francisco. The price of the server, which is based on a standard 1.4-gigahertz Intel microprocessor, will begin at $2,795. The pricing is aggressive, analysts said, making Sun quite competitive with vendors like Dell Computer. A similarly configured system from Dell running the Red Hat version of Linux costs about $3,700.”
Adds NYT:
For some time Sun has pursued a strategy of “thin clients,” using very inexpensive terminal devices on the desktop and centralizing computing on its powerful servers. Now, however, the company has begun to sketch out a strategy based on Linux and its inexpensive StarOffice software suite, which provides typical business functions like word processing and spreadsheeets.
Sun’s new executive vice president for software, Jonathan Schwartz, says that with this new strategy, Sun will approach large corporate computing installations and try to persuade them to break away from Microsoft and its Office applications.
“Our target is the telephone-call center that wants to put software on 10,000 desktops,” he said.
