Orlando - Never one to mince words, Sun Microsystems, Inc. CEO Scott McNealy took some jabs at rival Microsoft Corp. and Bill Gates in his Planet Tivoli keynote address here this week.
Borrowing some of the shoe-gazing, brow-rubbing low-key style of comedian Stephen Wright, McNealy mumbled some acerbic one-liners into his microphone that left conference attendees howling.
"If you want to see some of the new features of NT 5.0, look at Solaris '93," McNealy said, suggesting that Microsoft's upcoming operating system release is five years behind Sun's in functionality.
McNealy then stole a page from late-night talk show host David
Letterman by delivering a Top 10 list of reasons for being a
monopolist, a light-hearted poke at the Department of Justice's
antitrust case against Microsoft. McNealy actually gave 14
reasons, including:
- "When your house is bigger than the White
House"
- "When the DoJ opens up a branch in your
headquarters building"
- "When you don't realize
that giving something away for free is predatory pricing,"
a reference to Microsoft bundling its Internet Explorer browser
with the Windows 98 operating system
- "When Janet Reno has you on speed dial."
"Monopolists have a different rule set," McNealy said. "I'd like to see the rules applied and the laws enforced. But that's not necessarily all that's going to be required," he said, without elaborating on the last point.
McNealy also took the Planet Tivoli keynote opportunity to plug Sun's Java programming language, which is at the heart of the rift between Sun and Microsoft. He said Java could become an all-purpose programming language for a variety of network appliances.
Anything with a microprocessor and a network port can run Java applets, from Smart Cards for user authentication to mainframes, McNealy argued. A Smart Card, McNealy said, is "the ultimate thin client."
Motorola, Inc. is putting Java on pagers and cellular phones, and could ship 500 million to a billion such devices by the time its Java licensing agreement with Sun expires, McNealy said. And cable television giant TCI is putting Java on set top boxes to enable homes to access the Internet from their TVs.
"Set-top boxes will be the network computer of choice in the home," McNealy predicted.
He even said Java can be embedded in jewelry and other body ornaments to authenticate people for hospital record keeping or library access.
"Wearable computing is coming to you," McNealy quipped.
And in a last dig at Microsoft, McNealy had this to say about the software giant's alleged claim in a published report that they are going to "kill Java":
"They didn't, they haven't and they won't," McNealy declared.
