Skip to Content
Practical Free Alternatives to Commercial Software
book

Practical Free Alternatives to Commercial Software

by Steve Oualline, Grace Oualline
May 2018
Beginner to intermediate
429 pages
7h 10m
English
Apress
Content preview from Practical Free Alternatives to Commercial Software

Part IIICloud-Based Services

Cloud-Based Services

In 1995, Sun Microsystems had a “brilliant” idea. Back then, computers cost $500 to $10,000, and this was when $500 was a lot of money. Putting a computer on the desk of everyone in an office was a considerable expense. So, Sun created the idea of a thin client, which is a small computer with just enough CPU power to connect to a big server. The thin client would handle the display and the keyboard, and the big server would do all the work. That way, Sun would sell lots of big servers.

It was an idea ahead of its time…way ahead of its time. No one wanted to spend the money for the big servers and for the people to keep the big servers running, so Sun’s idea never caught on, that is, until Google ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

How to Develop a Great Digital Strategy

How to Develop a Great Digital Strategy

Jeanne W. Ross, Cynthia M. Beath, Ina M. Sebastian
The Hidden Cost of AI-Assisted Creativity

The Hidden Cost of AI-Assisted Creativity

Léonard Boussioux, Anil Doshi, Oliver Hauser, Kartik Hosanagar
What Successful Project Managers Do

What Successful Project Managers Do

W. Scott Cameron, Jeffrey S. Russell, Edward J. Hoffman, Alexander Laufer

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781484230756