"Sorry, the NC lost. It's a dead issue"
Jon,
I am not an NC fanatic or fan...however, you are ignoring the basic
argument for NC's. It has nothing to do with costs out of the box.
We all agree that pc's are as cheap, if not cheaper, than NC's. Where NC's shine is enterprise management. NC's are WAY cheaper to maintain.
Say you are Joe IT guy. If you have 500 windows users on your LAN, your life is spent trouble shooting 500 windows machines (and most of us here know how difficult supporting one machine is). Not to mention the big bucks Microsoft wants in licensing for each and every machine you own (along with a fee for every microsoft app. you run on every machine you own). Most NC's are extremely easy to maintain, and the software licensing costs are no where near as expensive as PC's are.
The basic argument for NC's is not internet downloads, low cost of hardware, or cheap storage. The compelling argument is total cost of ownership. This counts software costs, maintenance costs, and licensing costs. NC's are not the "holy grail" for the pc user at home. They are, however, a means to keep LAN administrative costs from going through the roof.
That being said, I do agree that Sun's future is in the server. NC's seem to be a distraction to Sun.
Aloha,
Mark |
