Berlind on JDS: $50
Look
at the contract layers of the offerings from Sun and Novell. For
almost the exact same amount of money -- $50 per year -- they deliver
almost exactly the same core contract: the Web (Mozilla), a
productivity suite (StarOffice or OpenOffice), and e-mail and
scheduling (Novell's Ximian Evolution) . What makes JDS
interesting, and further drives home the embedded/commodity point, is
that JDS delivers precisely the same contract for the same price on its
version of Unix (Solaris) as well. This drives the Linux faithful
crazy because it makes Sun look like it's vacillating on its Linux
strategy -- a myth that many perpetuate -- when it's not.
Has Linux taken its toll on Sun? Sure. But, on the desktop,
Sun is simply delivering a contract for $50. Take your pick --
Solaris or Linux. Although Sun hopes you'll be pleasantly
surprised by the Solaris version, Sun really doesn't care which one you
pick and the message is, neither should you. What makes these
offerings both interesting and useful is definitely not the OS.
So what does make these offerings interesting? Fascinating read.
