By William Fellows
Unlike Apple Computer Inc’s multi-colored desktops, Sun Microsystems Inc isn’t offering Sun Ray 1 in anything but gray livery, but president and COO Ed Zander showed off a handful of custom versions at yesterday’s launch in New York. Sun Flamingo for the Vegas crowd was decked in pink feathers; Sun Fari had a Zebra’s black and white stripes; a Tiger Woods edition complete with tee’d golf ball was there to keep CEO Scott McNealy happy while Sun Punk was done in tartan with a blue tuft; and ShagStation 1, the last virgin appliance was dressed in an Austin Powers get-up.
Zander said there have been over 200,000 downloads of its free StarOffice suite in the five business days since it’s been available in the US. Zander said new Sun servers using the UltraSparc III Cheetah CPU will be available by this time nest year. It had been aiming to have them out by mid-2000.
Zander says the trends that Sun is betting on assume that in time a company becomes an internet in its own right and the distinction between intranets, extranets and the internet breaks down, and firewalls retreat. There will be no distinction between the handling of voice and data traffic. The operating system becomes a hidden feature. New application software is free or subscription or usage-based. CPU cycles are rented not bought.
