In my humble opinion as long as PCs continue to decline in prices, NCs will not be popular. It is as simple as that, and believe me I have been a strong believer of NCs. It is simple, given a choice between a fully blown PC and a NC with both of them being about the same price, which would you rather to buy? I know," I" will definitely buy the PC (and I am the guy who designs and architects the software that are supposed to run on NCs as well as PCs!!). So it is not a matter of which is better, it is simply a matter of economics: Get the most with your money! and that translates into PCs at this time. And I personally do not believe this trend will change either especially in light of companies such as AMD, Cyrix and even Intel coming out with cheap powerful chips that allow PC makers such as DELL, Compq, and others sell PCs at ridiculously low prices. This is indeed a blow to the concept of NCs and regretfully this will be one of the factors for the market to have a wrong perception of Sun Microsystems!
The truth of the matter is, regardless of NCs and/or cheap PCs, it is the computing model that has changed and therefore as far as Sun is concerned nothing has changed with its bright future! The computing has been shifted toward server centric/thin client and this is where Sun is and will cotninue to be a big player: Servers!
Wether PCs are used (cheap or expensive does not matter), or NCs are being deployed, most software that are deployed are designed to have thin client/server centric characteristics. This is the way of the future (and in fact now)! And if you doubt this or do not believe in the thin client/server centric model, then you may want to look at the recent run up of these internet related stocks (from AOL, ELNK to SPLN, to CYBG, ISSX, ....,....,...., and basically anything that has something to do with internet and internet computing).
Should the idiotic market perception toward Sun takes the price down to $33-$38 (as I believe it would) a very unique golden opoortunity will be at hand.
As always just my humble opinion.
Regards,
Addi Jamshidi |
