Perhaps they're just afraid of looking like they're from 1997 when they propose a slimmed-down cheap computer that can only browse the web and run Java applicat

Perhaps they're just afraid of looking like they're from 1997 when they propose a slimmed-down cheap computer that can only browse the web and run Java applications, and is heavily reliant on servers for its functionality. (For the youngsters, this idea was called the "Network Computer", and was heavily promoted by Sun, Oracle, and Netscape.)