Weiqi Gao had an pointer to the latest Java Desktop System by Sun. The Java wonks are excited about the prospect of Java becoming as prevalent in the home computing market as it is in the enterprise market, but if WalMart is successful with these machines, then those same wonks will find themselves saying, "Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it."

WalMart has a long history of squeezing its suppliers and Sun is in a perfect condition to be squeezed. WalMart makes everybody play by its rules. According to this article in FastCompany:

Wal-Mart is legendary for forcing its suppliers to redesign everything from their packaging to their computer systems. It is also legendary for quite straightforwardly telling them what it will pay for their goods.

I'm not really imagining a nightmare scenario where WalMart takes over the JSR process and finds some loophole to close the Linux source and sell it as their own. They would have to sell a lot of these computers to get that interested. I suspect that these machines will only be popular within the Java geek crowd. If the JDS does become ubiquitous, then I believe that WalMart will attempt to control the operating system (Linux) and software behind it (Java) and that is pretty scary. In that case, I'd rather stick with the devil I know - Microsoft.