Posted on 19-9-2002

Sun Shines On Linux
By John Markoff, NYT

San Francisco, Sept. 17 — Sun Microsystems plans to throw its weight behind
the "open source" software movement on Wednesday as part of an industry
effort to offer an alternative to Microsoft's Windows and Office programs.

Sun's challenge, based on the Linux alternative to Windows-based software,
is a daunting one, according to industry analysts, because Microsoft's
Office suite of word-processing, spreadsheet and other software
applications is pervasive in the corporate computing world. Yet Sun
executives said they believed that Microsoft was vulnerable in
cost-sensitive markets like large corporate call centers, which provide
things like customer service; retail banking organizations; and government
and educational institutions. "The industry is ready," said Jonathan
Schwartz, executive vice president for software at Sun. "There is a great
opportunity for a major systems company to commercialize a full Linux
desktop." Sun plans to promote the Linux operating system along with Sun's
own line of StarOffice applications programs. Mr. Schwartz said Microsoft
was also at risk because many organizations were frustrated with computer
security issues that continued to plague the company's software.

Sun, which plans to announce the new strategy at a conference for its
customers on Wednesday, said it would begin shipping the new products in
the next nine months. Although the Linux operating system for file-sharing
server computers has proved a viable alternative to Microsoft and other
vendors in the price-conscious part of corporate computing, Linux has not
yet made significant inroads among nontechnical personal computer users.
But a number of executives who are involved with open-source software said
that Linux was beginning to catch on among the nontechnical users. One
reason for that, they said, was that Microsoft had changed its pricing for
corporate and government organizations in recent months to a subscription
model, which many customers say has effectively raised the cost of the
company's software. "When Microsoft changed their pricing policy for
enterprise customers," said David Patrick, the president and chief
executive of Ximian, a partner of Sun, "it sent a strong message. And since
then our activity has increased exponentially." Ximian publishes
open-source software, including Gnome desktop applications and Ximian
Evolution, a competitor to Microsoft Outlook.

For Sun, a computer maker and software company that has been struggling
along with the dot-com and telecommunications industries, offering an
inexpensive alternative to Microsoft's products is an effort to find new
customers. Mr. Schwartz argues that besides having lower licensing fees
than Microsoft, the open-source alternative based around Linux and Sun's
own StarOffice program will also offer other indirect cost savings. "We can
support 2,000 users with one system administrator at Sun," he said. "It
requires in the neighborhood of one administrator for every 50 users in the
Windows world." But he said Sun had no immediate plans to try to compete
with Microsoft for the heart of its user base: white-collar workers and
managers.