McNealy: Sun likes controversy - and India

Being controversial helps Sun Microsystems stand out in a highly-commoditised IT market, says CEO Scott McNealy.

"I can't worry about scepticism. If there's no controversy and everybody buys into our ideas and follows them, there is no chance of making money," McNealy told reporters at a press briefing following his public address in Singapore on Wednesday.

"The question is whether we have a controversial and right strategy. If so, we'll make a lot of money," he quipped.

Today, on the Indian leg of his Asian tour, McNealy said Sun will donate $300m worth of software to students, researchers and universities. Last November, in a similar visit - though one in which he was greeted at one stage by an eight-foot high condom - Microsoft chairman Bill Gates pledged $400m over the next three years to the Indian tech industry.

During McNealy's public speech on Wednesday, he gave his take on the future network and debatable developments which will constitute "the next big thing in technology", all powered by Sun's products and technologies in the background, of course.

He mooted the firm's bold N1and Throughput Computing efforts under which, new layers of software will be designed to better coordinate and utilize computing and storage power in corporate systems.

In addition, McNealy envisioned a world where handheld devices and Java smart cards will provide users with secure mobility and ubiquitous access to the internet, possibly rendering the present-day PC redundant.

As an example, user identities can be stored in Java smart cards while their desktop information and applications are saved on the enterprise server.

End users only need to go to a 'dumb' client such as a Sun Ray workstation, slide their Java cards and they will be able be retrieve their desktop, he said. This way, users are not bound to their terminals and in instances like an office move, no tedious reconfiguration is necessary.

Unlike present PCs which house their own processors, Sun Ray desktops mostly rely on a central server to do most processing tasks. They are also equipped with smartcard readers for user authentication.

While the concept of having an all-in-one card may seem far-fetched for most countries, McNealy feels it could be feasible in a small but technologically-advanced state like Singapore.

"This is probably the only place on the planet to be able to realise this Java card vision," he said.

Discounting Intel's Itanium chip as a "serious disaster from a very good company", McNealy also confirmed plans for the launch of a new Sun microprocessor next year.

Coined Niagara, the new processor will come with eight processor cores which can handle four instructions each, he said.

Winston Chai writes for CNETAsia.