Java Desktop crashes during Sun's CEO keynote at CTIA

Usually these kinds of things only happen to Microsoft, nevertheless, here we are. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, was delivering a keynote speech to a full room at CTIA Wireless 2004 when his Linux machine, running Sun's Java Desktop unexpectedly became completely frozen.

He had to reset the machine and they quickly switched to a pre-recorded standby video presentation.

In the words of our on-the-floor journalist covering the event for LXer, "it was embarrassing."

He did not disclose which distribution he was running, as the talk was primarily centered around Java and their thin client architecture, with an emphasis on Sun but brief mentions of open source.

Update 2004-03-24: Due to the gloating from the Microsofty crowd, I feel obligated to point out that it was Sun's Java Desktop that crashed, NOT the Linux operating system. Sorry to disappoint! ;-)