Sun Casts Windows In New Light
Time to buy ctxs
(03/22/98; 11:42 a.m. EST)
By Mitch Wagner, InternetWeek <Picture>A device initially envisioned as a Wintel
killer is instead emerging as a friend to Windows.
Users of Sun Microsystems' JavaStation, to be announced on Tuesday, will be able to
run Microsoft Windows applications through Citrix Systems Inc.'s WinFrame software,
which lets thin clients access applications running on a server.
Sun will include a version of the Citrix client on the first generation of JavaStations, and
also will support Microsoft's Hydra Windows-based Terminal Server, due out late in
the second quarter.
Sun plans to announce on Tuesday that it's shipping the JavaStation, priced at $768 for
the CPU, software, keyboard and mouse. In addition to a Java Virtual Machine and
WinFrame, the NC also will run a terminal emulation package and X Window software
for accessing Unix applications. Sun also plans to announce availability of Netra j 2.0,
the server software that boots and manages JavaStations.
Sun's Windows strategy for its network computer may be the final chapter in the story
of the NC's changing vision. Initially seen as devices that would sweep Intel/Windows
PCs off users' desktops, NCs and other thin clients are emerging as replacements for
terminals. Thin clients also are popular as client devices for running Windows GUIs to
access applications running on NT servers.
"We recognize that customers may want to access Windows applications on an
occasional basis, and we recognize that the number of third-party Java applications is
small with regard to Windows," said Steve Tirado, director of product marketing for the
Java Systems Group at Sun.
Although the NC story appears over, vendors await a sequel. They cling to a long-term
vision that the devices will be used to run enterprise applications written in Java, without
any need for Windows.
Thin-client user Rod Crownover, a network services manager at AT&T Wireless, said
he sees Windows support as inevitable, despite Sun's anti-Microsoft stance.
"If the JavaStation can run Windows applications, it'll be more attractive," said
Crownover, whose company uses 400 WinTerminals from Wyse Technology Inc.
Sun plans to try to sell its JavaStations to a type of user running what it terms a
"fixed-function" application--simple functionality that doesn't change, such as hotel
reservations, call centers or point-of-sale terminals. Initial users of the NC will likely be
using it for terminal emulation and to access homegrown enterprise Java applications,
Tirado said.
IBM agrees. The company has been running WinFrame software on its NCs for about a
year.
The age of the true Java NC is just beginning, said Howie Hunger, director of channels
and marketing in IBM's network computer division. He noted that Java business
applications are just now starting to become available, with IBM's Lotus Development
shipping its eSuite applications this week.
NCs have had problems in the marketplace compared with Windows-based Terminals,
devices designed specifically to run WinFrame and WBT clients. According to a report
released this week by Zona Research, only about 59,000 thin clients that shipped last
year could run Java, just 17 percent of total thin-client shipments.
For now, users running NCs most often use them for terminal emulation and
browser-based apps.
The California Housing Finance Agency uses 180 NCs from Network Computing
Devices Inc. to access six RS/6000 servers using X Window, and two Windows NT
servers using WinFrame.
"We are using Informix as a database and we just started to theorize about starting to
learn to use Java and see what that's like," Dominick Maio, CIO at the agency, said.
The agency hopes that Java will let it easily put a user interface on its applications, which
are now character-based. The NCD NCs will support client-side Java.
Prime Equipment, a construction-equipment rental company, uses about 700 IBM NCs
for terminal emulation to access the company's AS/400-based point-of-sale system.
The NC's browser lets users access E-mail in Lotus Notes, said Travis Singleton,
manger of technology development. The company has no plans to build Java
applications for its NCs. <Picture: TW> |
