And they said it couldn’t be done. Sun Microsystems Inc has finally delivered on the magic price point for network computers by cutting the cost of its much-delayed JavaStation to $500, or $499, to be precise. But, and it’s a fairly big but, users still have to pay an additional $69 per unit for a software license, which rather takes the shine off the announcement. The price cut for the 32Mb JavaStation is preparing the market for the next version of the machine, due next quarter. Oracle’s Larry Ellison began preaching about the $500 NC back in late 1995, but Sun quickly saw that price couldn’t be achieved any time soon and the JavaStation finally arrived in volume just a few months ago, more than two years late, and costing $700. But Sun did promise that this magic day would arrive, and so it proved (09/10/98). In the time it took the NC market to splutter into action, the price of PCs fell so much that they pulled the rug from under the NC market, despite the NC maven’s protestations that real cost of computing lay in the cost of ownership, not the cost of purchase.
