Sun Leads ‘Internet Terminal’ Push Lower-Priced Pcs Would Allow Increased Data Access

In a development that may someday shake up personal computer design, Sun Microsystems Inc. and other companies are trying to create machines that would sell for just a few hundred dollars and access the Internet and other networks, Sun’s top executive said Monday.

The computers would be little more than a microprocessor and a few other chips, keyboard, screen and a communications connection. They would be able to access and manipulate sophisticated programs and data on other computers.

A programming language Sun recently developed called Java allows software creators to make products that can easily be sent across a telephone line or other network.

For instance, a person would not need a personal finance program in their home computer to interact with a bank. The portion of the program that the person needs would download upon request from the bank and vanish when the work is done.

With less need for hard drives, floppy disks or CD-ROMs, a computer could be streamlined and produced for less money. That would be important for people unable to afford today’s desktop PCs, which start around $1,000.

While it may take several years for such machines to reach stores, some companies have created prototypes, said Scott McNealy, Sun’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“People are way ahead of us already,” he said in an interview. “I have already seen (from other companies) designs of Java terminals.”

He declined to identify those companies or specify their relationship to Sun.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company itself will also likely produce such machines, McNealy said. The company is now a $6.5 billion designer of advanced workstations, microprocessors and system software.

In addition, he said, the ability to connect to networks and manipulate Java-based programs could be added to video game machines and other consumer electronics devices at little cost.

Sun is talking to several electronics makers about such integration but McNealy again declined to comment specifically.

Such moves support Sun’s futuristic view that networks are becoming more important as the source of data and programs than individual computers. The idea requires most people to rethink the way they use software - borrowing it from some other computer rather than installing it permanently in a machine.

“If well done, it might have some merits,” said David Tremblay, analyst at CI-Infocorp. “But people are used to buying a program one time and having it be there whenever they need. This is making a fundamental change in the way that people are looking at software.”

Success also depends on phone, cable and other data lines being improved to carry more signals. Sun has promoted investment in better lines in the United States and overseas, where governments often control a nation’s communication system, McNealy said.

Since its introduction last spring, Java has risen to prominence because of the way it can be used with the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.

The Web has become popular because it provides a simple way to link information - whether text, graphics, sound or other multimedia - on computers that can be thousands of miles apart.

With Java, there can be more action on the Web than just moving among static pages of information. Someone looking over mutual fund information on a brokerage’s Web site, for instance, could download a program that would allow the calculation of an investment.

Sun has received more interest in the product than any in its 13-year history, McNealy said. When word spread that Sun was inviting programmers to a Java seminar in New York last week, the company was faced with turning away more than 1,000 people who wanted to come.

“In terms of interest per advertising dollar spent, this might be a new record,” McNealy said.

“We haven’t run a Java ad yet. We haven’t rented the Stones,” he said, joking about Microsoft Corp.’s use of the Rolling Stones in a $200 million marketing effort for Windows 95.