Not true, says Sun, that its agreement with Microsoft is all smoke and mirrors. In fact, with $2 billion changing hands and a 10-year technology collaboration framework agreement on record, the obligations and opportunities of both parties are clear.

Nor is it true that the agreement will further burden Sun's R&D budget. With access to the communications protocols and APIs necessary to interface directly with Microsoft products, Sun will no longer have to reverse-engineer Microsoft code or employ third-party products to ensure interoperability.

The agreement will make it possible for Sun products to support most of Microsoft's server-side technologies, including the very latest (.Net, BizTalk, Longhorn). It will also make it easier to bring these solutions to market quickly and support them fully.

Somehow, a myth has arisen that interoperability is a concern new to Sun. In fact, the company has been involved with the issue for more than 22 years. With its adherence to industry standards and its versatile SolarisTM Operating System (Solaris OS), Sun has already moved decisively in the direction of interoperability.

Sun sees interoperability as complementing other means of investment protection, a dominant corporate concern: application compatibility with the Solaris OS, mix-and-match of old and new processors in Sun FireTM servers, full hardware backward compatibility, standard and modular Uniboard technology. In other words, protecting the customer's investment in Windows-centric desktop and workgroup infrastructure through integration with Sun in the datacenter and on the edge.

Furthermore, the Sun/Microsoft agreement does not threaten Linux and open source. It will instead promote and protect the interests of anyone involved with providing OS-agnostic services.

Sun will continue its involvement with the Linux ecosystem and some of its more formal groups, such as the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL). This agreement should also help develop consensus among adherents of the many different views in the emerging field of Web Services, speeding up the definition and adoption of standards for Web Services security, extended transactions, orchestration/choreography and business process modeling. [...read more...]

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