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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: djia101362 who wrote (29291)	9/8/1999 8:49:00 PM
From: taxman	Respond to of 74651

is sun about to slay office, web tv and windows 2000? regards Palo Alto, California, Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Sun Microsystems Inc., the No. 4 maker of computer servers, unveiled a terminal that's designed to compete with personal computers running on software made by archrival Microsoft Corp. The new Sun Ray machine is much smaller than a PC and has no disk drives, getting almost all of its computing power from larger servers that run whole networks of the devices. Users of the machine will have a credit card-sized key that will let them access their own word-processing documents, schedules and spreadsheets on any Sun Ray machine in a company or school. The new terminal is part of Sun's effort to shift computing away from PCs and onto networks of less complex machines that are powered by servers, the high-end computers that Sun makes. Microsoft and Intel Corp., the world's biggest maker of PC chips, could suffer if such devices become popular. ``This could become pretty prevalent,' said Kimball Brown, an analyst at market researcher Dataquest in San Jose, California. ``I think it's really viable.' Palo Alto, California-based Sun's shares fell 7/8 to 85 7/16 after touching a record 88. They've more than doubled this year. Simplifying Sun executives for years have been saying that PCs are too complex and should be replaced with screens that run off a central computer and can be maintained by professionals. Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy often refers to Microsoft's Windows software as the ``hairball on the desktop.' Microsoft had no comment on Sun's plans. Sun plans to lease the new machines to customers for $9.99 a month. Including the computer servers, software, networking equipment and other components used to run the Sun Ray machines, companies can get PC-like capabilities for less than $30 a month, Sun said. Users also can buy the machines for $499, a price Sun says will fall rapidly. The machines are assembled for Sun by Mitac International Corp. in Taiwan, the company that makes some of Sun's lower-priced computer workstations. Sun Ray marks Sun's second assault on Microsoft in little more than a week. The company on Aug. 30 disclosed its purchase of Star Division Inc., a closely held company that makes word- processing, scheduling and spreadsheet software that competes with Microsoft Office, one of the Redmond, Washington-based company's best-selling software packages. Sun plans to make the software available for free to companies and universities so that they, in turn, can offer it to their customers and students. Companies including BellSouth Corp. and schools such as Pennsylvania State University have agreed to test the Star Division products. The Star Division software, called StarOffice, will run on the Sun Ray terminal, Sun said. `Cost Effective' Elbie Yaworsky, director of the Electronic Information Network at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, said he's purchased 200 Sun Rays to replace PCs and plans to buy more because they're easy to use and inexpensive to maintain. ``This is a very cost-effective thing to do,' he said. Users of the EI Network in the Carnegie library already are choosing the Sun machines over PCs for digging through the collection of electronic documents, Yaworsky said. Sun has tried to make so-called network appliances like Sun Ray before, with limited success. Its Java Station, named for its use of Sun's Java software, has yet to become popular, in part because PC prices have fallen, making them more attractive. Sun unveiled Sun Ray at a press conference in New York. The devices can be ordered now in the U.S. and Canada and will be available in other parts of the world within a year. ¸1999 Bloomberg L.P.