I came across the excellent Think Thin article discussing Sunray as a mass market consumer appliance ( http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ThinkThin?entry=consumer_sun_rays) too late to post a comment. The conclusion I drew from reading the comments was that although it had great potential to the non-power user, support would be an issue when catering for application type issues of the "how do I" kind (such as "how do I run this .mov attachment that my son has emailed"). Also I gathered that in order to lessen those calls a sizeable infrastructure and well integrated desktop would be needed to make the user experience as familiar and simple as possible.
Looking at Sun's focus in the last year of Grid service (both cpu and storage), the growing interoperabilty with Windows and proven support record it seems that Sun, itself, has most of the elements in place to provide such a service. I am guessing it would require alliances with ISPs to offer something like the "$25 a month [EMAIL PROTECTED] device (with compatible printer)". In such a partnership, the ISPs could act as resellers and provide end-user support and Sun could handle second line desktop grid related issues to the ISP. I know support is still a thorny issue when it comes to peripherals such but ISPs have supported modems and pc connectivity well enough up to now. I can't see why a dedicated Sun Ray trained team can't handle "compatible" printers and scanners Given Sun's willing-ness for innovation and trying new things I would not have thought a Sun supplied Desktop Grid service marks a seismic change. With a bit of luck and the "Ray in every room" potential it could be Sun's success story equivalent of the ipod. Infact now that I have given them the "Ray in every rooom" marketing slogan with wish to promote this thing they should get started right away Paul ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ SunRay-Users mailing list [email protected] http://www.filibeto.org/mailman/listinfo/sunray-users
