Cheryl, I believe the NC and the Sub $1k PC are entirely different
markets, and won't have any cross impacts for quite some time.
The NC is really geared to the business market, and moreso to
application specific tasks. You really don't want a travel agent
playing games, writing a resume, or surfing the net, so the NC
goes a long way towards reducing TCO by eliminating all the
distractions to employee productivity. Plus, it's optimized for that
particular task.
The low end PC, at least for now, is more a consumer item, although
there is really no reason most companies couldn't provide one of these to (my guess) 90% of their employees without any loss of
productivity. But, the resolution of this issue may be more cultural than economic.
The value for Sun of the thin client is not the thin client itself, but
(I hope, I hope, I hope) future royalty/licensing income from the
software, as well as the demand for enterprise level servers. Plus,
Sun would have to become a low cost provider of thin client hardware, which is not really its core competency. If I'm not
mistaken, Scott always alludes to the server drag as the source of profits, as opposed to the thin client or software (because of the
large re-investments in Java).
I'm bullish on Sun. I just don't think the NC and sub $1k PC are
competing for the same customers.
And, on to your next post, yeah the ad campaign isn't the best, but
it sure beats that damned dog. One of these days I'll have to
tell you about a tasteless T-shirt I have, but at the moment, I
can't remember what it says, and Sun may pay good money to
buy it back.
Carl |
