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Sun Microsystems Linux Business

Sun Announces Linux Deal With Chinese Government 368

Posted by simoniker from the one-million-users dept.
Infonaut writes "Scott McNealy announced today at Comdex that Sun Microsystems has made a deal with China for a million desktop Linux deployments under the new $50/seat licensing plan for Sun's desktop software, which includes its Star Office 7.0 productivity program. Whether this will translate into renewed profits for Sun remains to be seen, but according to McNealy, it represents 'the No. 1 Linux desktop play on the planet'."
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Sun Announces Linux Deal With Chinese Government More

Sun Announces Linux Deal With Chinese Government

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  • Linux or Java? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Audent ( 35893 ) <audent@ilov[ ]scuits.com ['ebi' in gap]> on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:45PM (#7498912) Homepage
    According to InternetNews.com (http://www.internetnews.com/fina-news/article.php /3110131)
    it's going to be Java based...

    "Sun said the China Standard Software Co(CSSC) will use Sun's Java Desktop System as the foundation for standard desktop development and deployment in the People's Republic of China".

    Where does Linux fit into that? (Not being a smart-ass, just genuinely curious).
    • It's Linux-based. It will ship with a JVM. It makes Sun happy to call it Java Desktop, why not.
      • I wonder if it uses the HotJava web browser? Wouldn't that be something?

        • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Informative)

          by MasterD ( 18638 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:56PM (#7499377) Journal
          It doesn't. It uses Mozilla for the browser. There is no java component of the Java Desktop except for the JVM. Evolution is the email client. Gaim for IM. StarOffice is the office suite. Totem for A/V. And Gnome 2.4 w/ Nautilus for the Desktop.

          • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by CanadaDave ( 544515 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:32AM (#7499584) Homepage
            I'm surprised they use Evolution, I think Mozilla is better, and does Evolution have spam-filtering? I don't think so

            Also, had they used KDE they could have gone with kopete and konqueror which are far better apps than gaim and nautilus respectively IMHO.

            • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:3, Informative)

              by ericman31 ( 596268 )

              I'm surprised they use Evolution, I think Mozilla is better, and does Evolution have spam-filtering?

              They use Evolution because it interoperates with Microsoft Exchange Server and has an Outlook look and feel to it.

            • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:4, Informative)

              by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @01:27AM (#7499901)
              Sun (and most companies) prefer Gnome over KDE due to toolkit licensing. GTK is LGPL, but Qt is GPL. So you can release closed source apps for Gnome without buying any licenses, but you'd have to spend a few thousand on Qt licenses (remember, the Qt licensing is per developer) to make a closed source KDE app.

              I personally consider KDE to be far better than Gnome, both from a user's standpoint and a developer's standpoint. I usually avoid C++ when possible, but I really like Qt. Unfortunately it's licensing will kill KDE in the long run.

            • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Funny)

              by Geekenstein ( 199041 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @03:03AM (#7500334)
              Spam filtering? Why would China want to kill its number 1 export?

    • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Informative)

      by 1lus10n ( 586635 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:47PM (#7498932) Journal
      The java enterprise desktop is based on SuSe linux. It basically is SuSe with some value add-ons and support.

      • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by CanadaDave ( 544515 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:51PM (#7498953) Homepage
        Why did the Chinese go for this? They should know that it is just SuSe and they should know that OpenOffice is available for free from their website. Why now just make their own spin-off of Debian or something like that? Why buy some stupid thing from Sun which is improperly named "Java Desktop" and whose features can be found in any Linux distro. Whatever happened to Hancom linux? I thought that was popular in China?

        • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Informative)

          by 1lus10n ( 586635 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:58PM (#7499007) Journal
          Not to go over board with propaganda (I work for Sun).

          The Simple reason is: its cheaper to buy this from us than the cost to develop an equivelant setup.

          The more in depth reason is: because star office is better than openoffice (MOST of the code is the same, not all) they would have to license a JRE to include in their distro, and they wouldnt have the support structure that Sun has.

          • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by CanadaDave ( 544515 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:11PM (#7499086) Homepage
            "its cheaper to buy this from us than the cost to develop an equivelant setup

            So what would be an equivalent setup? I mean, if they wanted to use Mandrake (free edition) instead, for example. What does the Sun Desktop have which Mandrake doesn't (besides star office).

            "they would have to license a JRE to include in their distro"

            Not true. They can use Blackdown JRE.

            • What does the Sun Desktop have which Mandrake doesn't (besides star office).

              Enterprise-class support, relieability, acessibility, and (though perhaps irrelevant in this case) scalability.

              • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Insightful)

                by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:00AM (#7499409) Homepage Journal
                What does the Sun Desktop have which Mandrake doesn't (besides star office).

                1. support: having worked in a solaris shop in the past, i know that when you finally lay down the bucks for support you get support. your machine craters so bad that stop-a does nothing? there will be a guy in a tweed jacket from sun at your door in 40 minutes. mandrake doesn't do that.
                2. unified solution: the os is backed by sun, the hardware is backed by sun, the application is backed by sun. nothing sucks more than having an issue and hearing the vendor support staff blame each other for the failure. if something fails with this rig you make one call.
                3. accountability: no one ever got fired for going with ibm. or sun. if something does fail dramatically and you have gone with a "best of breed" (perceived or real) then your boss will be disappointed in the vendor. if you go with a small "indie" vendor like mandrake, your ass is fired.
                4. promise of permanence: will mandrake be around next year? if so, will they still be in a condition to honour their contracts? look at the stunt red hat just pulled - there are a lot of pissed off users out there and a lot of admins of small installations who have to explain to their bosses why the company now has to pony up $400 a seat or switch distros. with sun, the chinese feel confident that their vendor will still be around and still be honouring its contracts this time next year. and next year. and the year after.

                5. don't get me wrong: i think mandrake make a fine product... but when you've got $50 million of yr boss' money to invest you don't put it on papa's moustache to win in the third. you buy a t-bill.

            • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Insightful)

              by John Hurliman ( 152784 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:39PM (#7499275) Homepage
              Software is nothing in the enterprise without support.

              I was about to delve in more detail, but that says it perfectly.
              • Yeah but they're running Linux, the best support would be for the IT people to find a HOWTO on the 'net or ask on a mailing list rather than calling up SUN. Who knows more about Linux, hundreds of thousands of experienced users or all the employees at SUN combined? Besides the support from SUN could get expensive.

                • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

                  by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @01:36AM (#7499943)
                  Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:2, Flamebait)

              by 1lus10n ( 586635 )
              Well Staroffice and the JVM/JRE integration is key. blackdown is crap compared to the performance of Suns JRE's.

              but support is the big thing. Mandrake offers nothing even close in support terms to what sun can offer. The only Company that could compete with what Sun can offer is IBM. and IBM is not backing mandrake. at this point this decision is going to come down to redhat vs SuSe. and it seems like everyone is siding with SuSe right now.
            • What does the Sun Desktop have which Mandrake doesn't (besides star office).

              How about support from Sun included in the $50 price?
              That's what

          • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Mantorp ( 142371 )
            Having visited the Santa Clara site the way things work at SUN with access to your desktop from any computer within the organization and the flexible office spaces etc. is just neat.
            It's not revolutionary, and you could do it using non SUN stuff but it just works. Your sales people should just invite decision makers from other large corporations to your offices and have potential buyers look around the place.
            However, the SUN people I deal with still use Excel and Word rather than the Star office equivalen
          • because star office is better than openoffice

            I disgaree with this, having spent some time evaluating both products on three platforms.

            Star Office 7 does include features that OpenOffice does not, but Star Office is an absolute pig in terms of comparative performance. I am recommending to my client that Open Office is a better selection because the functionality advantages of Star Office do not outweigh the poor performance in my opinion.

            (MOST of the code is the same, not all)

            I'm not sure that th
    • Here [sun.com], read.

    • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:58PM (#7499006)
      I am really surprised by this move.

      I thought China had their own "officially sanctioned/goverment approved" distro, based off RedHat Linux, but called Red Flag Linux?
      http://www.redflag-linux.com/eindex.html

      If China spent money developing this distro, why would they change now?

      Nonetheless, 1 million Linux desktops is an impressive number, and should cause Billy boy to loose some sleep. And Sun isn't as fscked as SCO is it?
      • If China spent money developing this distro, why would they change now?

        The basic reason was user friendliness. All the documents for Red Flag Linux are in Chinese!

      • Re:Linux or Java? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AtomicBomb ( 173897 )
        You may find that weird why the Chinese govt behaves in such a contradicting way: supporting its own linux company while signing another contract from Sun. The main reason is the economic autonomy is fairly high over there, especially for the few affluent regions (eg. Beijing, Shanghai and GougZhou province govts). It is not that diffrent from, say, California obtains winXP license from MS for every children and his/her dog while Ohio adopts a complete Mac option for secondary school right at the same tim
    • It's not really Java based. Sun's Java desktop is GNOME. It has a Java VM along with it, but Java doesn't make up a big part of the desktop.

      Bruce

  • Amusing (Score:5, Funny)

    by C_Kode ( 102755 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:45PM (#7498919) Journal
    Sun says Linux isn't the future, yet they have no qualm of selling a million of them to China :)

    • Re:Amusing (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They said Linux is fine for the desktop, they just believe Solaris is better for the server.

  • Price wars (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:47PM (#7498926)
    Microsoft is pricing itself right out of the developing world. Newsflash: 90% of the world can't afford to fork over $500 for office.

    • Re:Price wars (Score:5, Insightful)

      by N1KO ( 13435 ) <nico,bonada&gmail,com> on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:54PM (#7498975)
      I'm pretty sure they know this... maybe they make more money charging $500 to those who can and let the others pirate the software instead of charging everyone $50.

      Chances are, they're using the pricing scheme that makes the most money for them.

      • Re:Price wars (Score:2, Insightful)

        by the_womble ( 580291 )
        Be letting people priate they destroy the cost advantage of free software and gain market and mindshare. When an economy develops to the point where more people can afford $500 everyone will be already be locked in and then MS (and others) wills tart enforcing their copyrights.

    • Re:Price wars (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ldecours ( 703865 )
      I can't believe China is actually going to pay for their software, to begin with. Historically, I think they've made more off of American I.P. than Americans have. It's kind of telling that they're moving to Linux shortly after they received the Windows source code from Microsoft (and launched major vulnerability-based attacks against Taiwan). They must have seen some really scary stuff in there. Anyone care to venture where all these newly- discovered Windows vulnerabilities are being unearthed?
    • Newsflash: 90% of the world can't afford to fork over $500 for office.

      Oh, I'm sure 90% of the world could afford a copy, if they all chipped in. :-D

  • Clunk! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mark_space2001 ( 570644 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:47PM (#7498928)
    That sound you hear is bricks hitting the ground in Redmond.

  • So is "Sun" in Chinese phone books now? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fux the Penguin ( 724045 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:47PM (#7498930) Journal
    Another article in a similar vein [crn.com]

    From the article:
    Sun Microsystems Inc. has scored a deal with a Chinese technology consortium to distribute its Java Desktop System to citizens of China, the company said Monday.


    The China Standard Software Company (CSSC) has selected Sun as its preferred technology partner to help provide a nationwide standard desktop software system to China's 1.3 billion citizens, according to Sun.


    100% of 1.3 BILLION PEOPLE. That's some hella marketshare right there. Ballmer must be scratching his big hairless monkey-head.

  • I just hope... (Score:4, Funny)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:48PM (#7498933)
    ...that narrow-minded politicians or lobbyists don't use a large deployment in a communist country as propaganda against open source.

    Of course, taking a cue from the '50s (and from Dr. Strangelove):

    "Mr. President! We cannot allow an open-source gap!"

    With apologies to Stanley Kubrick...

    • Re:I just hope... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ezubaric ( 464724 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:52PM (#7498965) Homepage
      I just hope that narrow-minded politicians or lobbyists don't use a large deployment in a communist country as propaganda against open source.

      "Mr. President! We cannot allow an open-source gap!"

      Uhh ... I don't think you get the point of the joke. We do want this. The "missle gap" or the "mineshaft gap" was our concern that Russia had more missles/mineshafts that we did and we couldn't maintain the balance of power. Politicians being concerned about a "open source gap" and then closing it would be good.

      Unless you don't want federal money and legal support for open source ...

      • Re:I just hope... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pavon ( 30274 )
        Except that the US can't own open source and thus can't leverage it. The only thing that the success of open source can do is kill proprietary software companies that put alot of money into the economy and pay lots of taxes. These big American companies do not like open source, and I garrentee you that once open source gets widespread to where there is a real chance of them going out of business there will be huge lobbying and propoganda attacks against it. (Nevermind the millions of dollars that are saved

        • Re:I just hope... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by RevMike ( 632002 ) <revMike@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @02:35AM (#7500228) Journal
          Except that the US can't own open source and thus can't leverage it. The only thing that the success of open source can do is kill proprietary software companies that put alot of money into the economy and pay lots of taxes.

          That is a "straw man" argument. For every less dollar spent by business on the products of a proprietary software company, a dollar will be saved by that business. That business will pay taxes on that additional dollar of profit.

          Meanwhile, as the portion of the IT budget spent for "commodities" like OSes and Office Suites drops, companies will take that savings and reinvest it in custom software that promises real productivity gains for that business. developers will find fewer jobs at software companies, but more jobs at companies that use software.

          Over the long run, the economy and the standard of living overall rise as the economy becomes more efficient. What is more efficient than free software?

          The world is changing. IBM has their boat all ready. Sun is just starting to build theirs. Microsoft is still standing on the shore cursing the rising tide.

    • Microsoft already sort of does this, when they say that they offer more "freedom and choice" compared to "open source". Sort of fits right in line with their democracy/good=commerical software communism/evil=open source method of thinking.
  • Does anyone know what packaging system they use? RPM, dpkg, or their own system?

  • Why Sun, and why Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:49PM (#7498939) Homepage
    The China Standard Software Co., a consortium of government-funded companies, selected Sun as its preferred technology partner to deploy Linux-based desktops. The deal is part of China's deliberate policy to diversify away from Microsoft.

    Hopefully there's more to it than just diversification. Don't get me wrong, heterogeneous computing is a wonderful thing, but I'd also hate to see governments, corporations, or anyone else making decisions based on computing philosophy instead of technical need and justification. (Some might argue that the first is the second, of course.)

    The article doesn't mention other reasons why the Chinese government felt Linux was ready to deploy Linux on desktops, why the available software such as StarOffice was adequate, or why Sun was chosen as the "preferred technology partner." I'm very interested to know exactly what it is about the overall computing infrastructure of the Chinese government that made it choose all of the above. What technical differences exist between their situation and, say, that of the U.S.?

    • Re:Why Sun, and why Linux? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:56PM (#7498993)
      The chinese government has been shown the source code for MS Windows.
    • There might be a simple answer to this: Wholistic Support!
      Sun makes the hardware and the software. They will be supporting both.

    • Re:Why Sun, and why Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by madfgurtbn ( 321041 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:26PM (#7499185)
      Don't get me wrong, heterogeneous computing is a wonderful thing, but I'd also hate to see governments, corporations, or anyone else making decisions based on computing philosophy instead of technical need and justification..

      If you are the Chinese government, or any other government who may one day end up on the wrong end of a war with us, avoiding US computing domination may be enough of a reason.

      Imagine if they become hopelessly locked into MS products then the US government decided to stop allowing the export of products to China.

      Most of the disadvantages of Linux based computing are the chicken and egg problems of no apps because there is no market for apps, and there is no market for apps because there are no apps.

      China just laid a big golden egg which could make the difference. And in this case, Microsoft has built their own cage. They forgot that the market for computers is still in it's INFANCY, and have been so arrogant in the treament of their installed base that they have managed to put Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt into the minds of the governments of the world.

      Microsoft has shown plainly to the world why they should not trust Microsoft, with BILLIONS of new users still to come online in the next two decades.

      Oops.
    • > What technical differences exist between their > situation and, say, that of the U.S.?

      1) the fact that there's no entrenched install base 'dependent' on a home-OS and asking for support for that in their work OS

      2) Language, languages, langui:

      China has many different langauges and dialects, of which Manadarin Chinese is just one. Support for 'minority languages' (like, what, 1% of the China's 1.3 bil people) does not figure highly in US purchasers' minds. It maybe does for the PRC

      3) Something you

  • overlords.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by js3 ( 319268 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:50PM (#7498948)
    so they switched from their American Windows based overlords to the new American Java based overlords. good move

  • Plan for Profit (Score:5, Funny)

    by use_compress ( 627082 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:51PM (#7498958) Journal
    1. Make one million Linux desktops with a secret backdoor.
    2. Have US military pay you for software to invade backdoor.
    3. Have China secretly pay you to patch the backdoor.
    4. ???
    5. Profit!
  • their research. If they did, I don't think they would be buying something from such a hypocritical company. We'll sell you Linux, but we don't think you should be buying it. That mentallity all in itself spells uncertianty for continued support. IBM who vowed to support Linux 100%(See here [iamwill.com]) seems like a better company to go through, though I think they are already helping the Chinese government with Linux. That's the last I heard anyway.

  • Of course, the caveat (Score:5, Funny)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:52PM (#7498964)
    The deal is for one license. McNealy was initially puzzled at how a single license could possibly be enough for the Chinese population, but when your stock is trading at $3/share, $50 is $50.

    In the meantime, the quiet hum of CD duplicators echoes across the middle kingdom...

  • Sun also rises (Score:3, Informative)

    by segment ( 695309 ) <sil@po l i t r i x .org> on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:58PM (#7499005) Homepage Journal
    yes! [netcraft.com] Now I could finally stop hearing all that Sun is dead talk. First the AMD news, now this, and wow then my gerbil talked! yes!.

    Seriously... I think it's good news for Sun, hopefully instead of spending millions chasing MS in court, they could put that money into R&D and kick some ass/arse/arslet/culo ..

  • Good news all 'round with China joining Brasil [slashdot.org] and Germany [slashdot.org] in massive deployments of an open source software infrastructure.

    I hope to see something of this scale happen in the United States, though I think it's more likely for a small cash-strapped state or major metro to adopt Linux state/city-wide than more well-heeled communities.

  • Business innovation (Score:3, Informative)

    by geekmetal ( 682313 ) <vkeerthy@gmail.cAAAom minus threevowels> on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:05PM (#7499053) Journal
    ``This I believe makes us the No. 1 Linux desktop play on the planet,'' McNealy said today at the Comdex technology trade show in Las Vegas. ``That's not the only opportunity. We're calling on every ministry of information technology on the planet.''

    I guess Sun is taking their definition of innovation beyond the realms of technology. This is a good thing, certainly for Sun. I believe the focus is strongly shifting towards the markets in India and China with their increasing buying powers. The outsourced jobs, after all are creating business opportunities in those areas. Might be too early to call it good a move, but a little pointer to that. Here is another article with comments from Australia's Reserve Bank Governor on the Indian and Chinese economies [rediff.com]

  • On the streets of China... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:08PM (#7499070)
    I can see it now...:

    Pssst, hey, you wanna buy a cracked version of Linux for only $2.88

    • Re:On the streets of Canada... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I made $80 selling Knoppix CDs "on the street" in Vancouver, BC, Canada last saturday ($5 each). And I told them it was free and they could download it themselves if they wanted, and that to install Linux they'd need to download a complete distribution. People seemed to like the Idea.

  • The real reason the Chinese government chose Sun.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:18PM (#7499122)
    Sun's logo has much better Feng Shui than the Microsoft one!

    -psy

  • SCO got $50M just to be a pain. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Proudrooster ( 580120 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:22PM (#7499156) Homepage
    Someone tell Sun there is an easier way to make $50M than having to work this hard. Simply tell Microsoft you'd be willing to sue a major Linux distributor and the checks will start coming your way. Act irrational and scream something incoherent about source code and intellectual property and you might get $100M.

    I guess this qualifies as a 1,2,3 Profit!

  • Good news for sun, but how good? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by katarn ( 110199 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:31PM (#7499230)
    This is good news for Sun and all, I'm sure. But I think it's more of a marketing win for them then a financial win. $50/license x 1,000,000 licenses is 50 million dollars. That's nothing to sneeze at but to put it in perspective, a little while ago Sun was hemorrhaging One *Billion* Dollars (finger in side of mouth) per *quarter*. So I don't think this deal by it's self is going to make a big impact on Sun's finances. But it's a good start, and certainly lends credibility to part of their business model.
    • You're right, of course. The key here though, is that market share --> mind share --> sales --> $$$.

      If Sun can really push this environment, then it will be the biggest breakthrough for Sun AND FOR LINUX we've seen in some time. Sun knows full well that this won't make them any money. Not yet, at least. It's all part of a larger and longer term plan, and it actually seems to be going well.
    • Sun was hemorrhaging One *Billion* Dollars (finger in side of mouth) per *quarter*

      Not really they had a small profit from operations and substantial positive cash-flow.

      The took a charge for loss on holdings like Cobalt and HighGround.

      This is akin to you still keeping your salary (maybe a little reduced) but your house is worth less than you bought it for. That is a bummer alright but will not kill you.

  • This is great news for OpenOffice.org (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Micah ( 278 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:45PM (#7499319) Homepage Journal
    With Sun's sinking fortunes, I for one have been a bit worried whether they could continue to fund OOo development. They absolutely need to sell quite a few StarOffice 7 licenses, and it looks like that is happenning!

    They have a good plan in place for OOo 2.0, probably released in the first half of 2005. Good luck to them!

  • Time to wheel out the old Ghandi saying again (Score:5, Funny)

    by hayden ( 9724 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:48PM (#7499334)
    1. First they ignore you.
    2. Then they laugh at you.
    3. Then they say it's a toy OS.
    4. Then they say it's great.
    5. Then they change their minds again.
    6. Then they write it off as crap somemore.
    7. Then they realise their market share is going down harder and faster than New Zealand in a World Cup semi final.
    8. Then they team up with an unethical has been company in an attempt damage you.
    9. Then they bite the bullet and rip off somebody elses distro.
    10. Then they proclaim they are the shining light of the OS and all should follow them.
  • Am I the only one to remember the recent trade negotiations that went on recently in Mexico? The Chinese Govn't has been throwing so many deals our way its obvious China is trying very hard not to upset the forces in Washington who can't 'Campaign' away the freakishly huge trade imbalance.

    Heck, even FSMLabs [linuxdevices.com] picked up some business with Redflag. On the same day!

    In any case, its a Good Thing 1 million desktops will be running linux under the hood, but lets not forget the world is far from black and white

  • Oh So Sweeeeeeeet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thedbp ( 443047 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:12AM (#7499465)
    I have to say, this could be one of the biggest boons for Linux on the desktop yet.

    And $50 a seat, including Office-type software? Fugedaboudit. No way in hell MS could EVER match a deal like that.

    Once the world's most populous nation starts using Linux as their day to day "this is just the way a computer works" OS will show the rest of the world that yes, Linux on the desktop is a perfectly viable solution, and just because there may be some migration pains in places where MS software has a stranglehold doesn't mean that the migration shouldn't occur.

    Every addiction has a painful withdrawl process ;) But the user is usually better off kicking the habit! The only problem I could see is a bunch of redneck Americans going around saying that Linux is a Communist operation system.

    oh, wait, they already do that. ;)

  • Bravo, Sun. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:12AM (#7499467) Homepage Journal
    This is good for everyone. It's good for Sun, who will hopefully continue to stay afloat now that they seem to be scoring some new big customers. They also will be more strongly motivated to stick with the Linux game in earnest this time around instead of being schizophrenic about it. It's good for Linux, with yet another big name player now firmly in the open source camp. And it's good for all of us, who depend on OpenOffice in order for our Linux desktops to remain viable and interoperable in an office suite dominated world.

    The only party for whom this is a bad thing is Microsoft. And that's exactly how it should be. While it is certainly way too early to declare the Great Satan of Redmond defeated, we can call this one more important step on that journey. I applaud Sun for this and hope they score more Linux wins.
  • Sun has made a huge investment of time, money and energy in Free Software for the desktop. Especially for GNOME and Open Office.

    I'm very glad that this is paying off for them. Hopefully IBM, HP and DELL will want to start competitng with SUN in putting Linux on Desktops.

    It is interestering to think that anybody can now put Fedora 1 on their machines and bundle a whole load of high quality software for 0 licensing cost.

    I wonder if these will appear in 1st world countries?

    Martin
  • I would really like to see a graph on Linux Usage vs Windows usage on the Desktop for the past , 2 years.

    So many governments are embracing Linux. Will Corporate (North) America wake up and finally see its potential?
  • Expect Darl and company to pull SUN's perpetual and (very recently) fully paid up license any time now.

    They've pissed off everybody else, why not piss off their (minority) investors, too?

  • What do they want? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Art Tatum ( 6890 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @01:45AM (#7499996)
    They want one...million...desktops.

  • No Loss to Microsoft here (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @04:41AM (#7500605)
    Nobody in China buys software.

    And its now official...Linux is for commies.

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