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

To: QwikSand who wrote (19185)	9/2/1999 4:46:00 PM
From: JC Jaros	Respond to of 64865

Even without the portal suite, this puts a serious crimp in the current (ongoing) M$ business model. Push will likely come to shove here with thin margin PC makers added value of bundling the free desk/webtop and Microsoft's bent of really really not wanting that to happen. The threats of "...or else" from Redmond weigh less and less. I wonder if they're bumping the Win2k release up just for the leverage and it will be yet another thing that comes back to bite them. -JCJ

To: QwikSand who wrote (19185)	9/2/1999 5:54:00 PM
From: Reginald Middleton	Respond to of 64865

Honestly, I think the market will be split. There are some hardcore wordprocessor users that just need Word 2000's power. But most of us don't, at least not all of the time. It is that "most of us" market that the "portal office" vendors will go after. Will this hurt Microsoft? Guaranteed! Will they be able to respond? Guaranted! MSFT has the most capable distributed office suite product in existence, they just don't dare offer it until it really is time to cannibilize desktop sales. All of the big companies are succeptible to commiditization: Sun in the mid to high end computing range, MSFT in desktop orientated software, INTC in mid to low end CPU's. That is the cost of technological advancement, Remember IBM and the Microchannel PC?

To: QwikSand who wrote (19185)	9/2/1999 7:16:00 PM
From: Stormweaver	Respond to of 64865

Free is good in that it removes the initial resistance to try something. Free however often cheapens the perception of the product and has to make one question will the features/support (product commitment) be as good with a free product as compared to one I pay for. For individuals this is not so much a concern but for large organizations this is a consideration in jumping into any new software product. StarPortal & Star Office seem to be what Sun was always missing - a desktop weapon. It can compete with existing desktop office technology and possibly be the stepping stone to a thinapp office suite; if they can trim that 60MB pig down somehow (or have some trickle/component download). I question though if they have to give it away for free - if it's all that and a bag of chips why not charge for it and create some revenue ? Cheers James