Sun's McNealy on Apple's Intel move

As part of a wide-ranging interview this week, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy shared his thoughts on Apple Computer and its recent decision to switch to Intel chips.

Although he said he fundamentally disagrees with Apple's approach -- that is making powerful desktop devices as opposed to thin clients -- he said that Apple certainly does make the best looking of the unnecessarily featured desktops.

As for the Intel move, McNealy said he expects the transition will take the better part of five years and ultimately could cause a challenge for the software developers that write for the Mac.

"Their ISVs are going to have to decide, do I write to Apple/Power or Apple/Intel?"

Apple's software tools will allow creation of a "universal binary" that puts software for both processors into a single package, but McNealy said a better universal binary is Java, which already lets programs run on a wide variety of computers.

"The big winner on this is going to the Java virtual machine," he said.