Sun to launch low cost Linux PCs

By Steve Malone

Posted on 19 Sep 2002 at 09:58

Sun Microsystems is to launch a range of PCs based on Linux, 'off the shelf hardware' and with its own StarOffice productivity suite.

The strategy is to produce a machine which will fill out Sun's product line at the low end so that the company can offer larger clients, it's talking about 100 clients at once, a complete solution which doesnÕt rely on Microsoft Windows at the user level.

The complete solution will offer the PC, the operating system, StarOffice, Mozilla, the Evolution email client (an open source Outlook clone), Java Card technology for security and authentication and a server. Sun sees this solution becoming attractive to security sensitive, low budget markets such as education, retailing and call centres. The software solutions have been tailored to operate with Microsoft file formats and the email client can operate with Microsoft Exchange.

Clearly, as a first step, the aim of the new range is to allow Sun to offer an end-to-end solution that it can support without having to involve Microsoft. However, depending on the success of the range, and the price points, it is also seen as a test as to whether Linux-on-the-desktop really can compete with the Windows juggernaut.

Whilst Sun, best known for its high end Unix workstations and Internet servers, has been protected from the worst of the vicious price war that has been taking place in the PC hardware market in the past few years, the price difference has meant that it was never going to be able to offer low cost SPARC/Solaris solutions at anything remotely like a comparable Wintel offering. But while the price of hardware has been in free fall, software pricing - mainly due to Microsoft's near monopoly on the desktop - has held steady. Sun has long sees the lucrative margins on desktop OS and Office apps as a potential revenue stream if it could somehow break Redmond's grip.

Over the past couple of years Sun has been edging closer and closer to taking on Microsoft on the desktop, first with its purchase of StarOffice and more recently its conversion to Linux. The final piece is for the company to offer its own brand of low end PC architecture machines.

If Sun can build a head of steam behind its new range, and get world class (i.e. comparable to Microsoft Office) software developed, it will open the doors and add credibility to the likes of Red Hat and UnitedLinux to offer their own solutions to businesses.

Sun says it expects the machines to become available in the US, in 2003, no pricing has so far been announced.