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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JC Jaros who wrote (18945)	8/27/1999 1:09:00 AM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

I have not tried it, but there are a few apparent weak points in the business model that I perceive: 1) It seems to just use GUI's on the client which would mean that there would be A LOT of back and forth traffic through the network. If you are not broad band, you will not be able to use this product with satisfaction. I doubt very seriously if the Star product is as fast as NuoMedia after it is cached, through a modem or even a T1. From what I've heard, the desktop version isn't even as fast, but that is pure hearsay, since I have not had a chance to test it out. 2) If it is true that they are just using a GUI on the client, then (unless they have rewritten thier entire app for high server loads) I doubt that the server side office code would be able to put up with a large amount of traffic. The server office code would have to simultanesouly process graphics for the presentation app, crunch numbers for the spreadsheet, perform the calculations necessary to reformat documents, etc. all while managing the throughput of these files for a multitude of simultaneous users (100's, 1000's?). That is a heavy hardware requirement and an even more robust coding requirement. They may tie it into an application server or other middleware - Who knows? I don't see it working, but then again I haven't tried the app out yet. We have written our servlets for the express purpose of dealing with a large amount of users (over the public Internet), and we are still having some stability issues. I can imagine the problems to be had in trying to use something made for an Intranet or client/server model. 3) It is in Sun's best interest to have a very weak client with very strong servers. This is not a truly web-centric model. I want client to be functional, just not tied to any particular desktop.