Scott McNealy dropped the first shoe at Linux World Expo in August. In his keynote address, Sun Microsystems' President and CEO said the company would be announcing a new Linux desktop at its SunNetwork conference in September. When the second shoe dropped at SunNetwork, it didn't appear to match the first. Rather than yet another Linux box, what the company announced was a desktop strategy meant to take advantage of the huge enterprise market for inexpensive and flexible no-name x86 PCs, and for cost-savings in general.
The code name for the strategy is "Mad Hatter". Here is how Curtis Sasaki, Sun's vice president of engineering, desktop solutions, explains it: "What we're announcing is a complete package, not just a box. You get a combination of hardware, software, services and back-end middleware as well. The hardware is a desktop with a Linux kernel, GNOME GUI, integration of the Java 2 platform, Mozilla, StarOffice and the Evolution application suite from Ximian. The differentiating factor is integration. What you get with one of our boxes is enterprise-ready and scalable, with directory, calendar, messaging server and Java Cards for access control as well." (Java Cards are Java-enabled smart cards.)
Target customers are cost-conscious companies with large populations of "transaction workers". But rather than selling droneware for cubicle hives, Mad Hatter's angle is all about individual identity.
"Today CIOs want to know exactly what it costs per user to have email, calendar and a directory account -- and what it costs for security," Sasaki says. What sun wants is for the enterprise to populate itself with Linux PCs that are personalized at authentication by the user's Java Card. And there appears to be a demand for this. Sasaki says, "While customers are extremely interested in aggressively priced systems based on open standards, they are also interested in the most unique hardware aspect of this offering: the Java Card that that allows the administrator to provision Web sites and applications based user authentication."
This brings us to a whole new classification, and an acronym to go with it. "It's not a PC, it's an IdC -- an identity computer," Sasaki says. "Identity is a big deal. It's about getting access to your desktop no matter where you are, based on your credentials."
Eric Norlin, an analyst at DigitalID World, provides some context. "Corporate IT has become almost a pure cost center. Just about the only IT efforts actually saving money (while increasing privacy and security) are in identity management. You can expect identity to move forward while other services tread water, because identity has real promise of converting IT from a cost center to a profit center. With Digital ID you have a real possibility for ROI on IT investments."
Sun's intent is also to make a single identity work outside and between companies as well as inside the user's employer. Sasaki explains how. "Liberty Alliance has an open spec developed by 115 companies from many industries. That spec answers the challenge of creating a way for users to sign on once for multiple services. You're going to see a lot of different Liberty-enabled services being able to utilize your identity securely. When there is a business relationship with an enterprise that also deploys liberty-enabled identity -- say, United Airlines or American Express -- then you can actually move from one to another without re-creating your identity."
Because Mad Hatter is about a stack of that runs on Linux, it can embrace a customer's existing x86 hardware, or it can respect the interests of countries like China, which insist on domestic manufacture. Hardware is just one swappable component. Writes Shahin Khan, Sun's Chieve Competitive Officer, " It is set up so you can delete and replace any components that you do not want."
Why now? According to Sasaki, the Linux desktop software stack is finally complete. "In the last 12-18 months, LOTD (Linux On The Desktop) technology has really matured. A year ago it wasn't real. We couldn't deliver a complete desktop solution. Our Office suite wasn't there. GNOME and KDE weren't mature enough. Mozilla wasn't at 1.0. Now GNOME 2.0 is pretty cool. StarOffice 6 is getting great traction. You've got a pretty nice product in Evolution. Now we're ready."
Sun will be putting together the first prototypes at its iForce centers before the end of the year, and expects the first IdCs to start shipping in the first quarter of 2003.
- Doc Searls