“Microsoft and Sun redrew the battle lines in the computing world Friday, with news of a 10-year pact designed to better integrate the leading proprietary Unix and Windows platforms and unifying the rivals against a common enemy–IBM and Linux,” Paula Rooney and Barbara Darrow report for CRN. “During a brief press conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Sun CEO Scott McNealy–megarivals whose companies have battled fiercely in the operating system market for more than 20 years–pledged to make their platforms and respective development tools interoperate.”
Rooney and Darrow report, “The wide-ranging pact calls for seamless interoperability between Windows and Solaris Unix operating systems and Java and .Net development platforms. It also ends Sun’s aggressive antitrust litigation against Microsoft and transfers $1.6 billion of the $55 billion in Microsoft’s war chest to Sun, which has seen its profit margins battered by the growth of Linux on Intel servers.”
“‘The deal is an unholy alliance that spells the end of Sun Microsystems as we know it. This move makes Sun the Apple Computer of the Unix world. Apparently, McNealy thinks the enemy of his enemy–Linux–is his friend. They couldn’t possibly be more wrong,’ said Ron Herardian, CEO of Global System Services, Mountain View, Calif. ‘It’s just an unbelievable disaster for the industry. This won’t stop Linux; it just puts Sun on the losing side of the battle line,'” CRN reports.
Full article here.
“[…] the leading proprietary Unix and Windows platforms […]”
What differentiates “proprietary Unix” and non-“proprietary Unix”? The reason I ask is that, last I heard, Apple was the leading vendor of Unix systems. But that may have been measuring something else…
I’ve known all along that the ONLY reason McNealy bitched so vociferously againt all things M$ – is that HE wanted to be Bill Gates.
Fer’crisakes, he hates M$ Office SO much, that he bought his own. Said that there’d be a Mac version of StarOffice/OpenOffice, any day now.
Yeah, uh huh. Whatever.
And what’s with Java Desktop? Doesn’t it sit on Redhat? I guess your customers being screwed too.
Java is finished.
Scott seems to have a short memory for what happens to ALL of M$’s partners.
Apple’s OS X sits on top of Darwin, an open source variant of BSD Unix. So while OS X is proprietary, the Unix it’s built on is not.
what the hell just happened
Scott Scott Scott..didn’t Mom ever teach you not to sell your soul to the devil?
This is the Saturday Morning News.
“What have I done!” A man’s tortured cry eminating from the San Francisco area was heard around the globe this morning at 11am EST.
Also in the news, Bill Gates’ personal wealth shot up last night to $120 Billion – cash.
Wait i thought april fools was yesterday????
i love it.. whenever MS settles a f-ing court case, it’s usually to the sum of hundreds of milliions of dollars, and the media calls it an alliance, or some damn thing…
MS is paying for its life of crime… there are more court cases coming too.. they don’t make friends..or alliances.. they’re thieves..dragging progress and sucking profits from the uneducated masses
This title should say Microsoft buy’s Sun for 2billion dollars
disaster. better be a late April Fool’s joke.
UNIX itself is proprietary. You can’t sell UNIX systems without licenses. However, there are other UNIX-like system that are using open source license and distribution, e.g. FreeBSD.
IMHO, McNealy is stupid. He knows very well how Microsoft likes to stab their partners in the back and yet he is willing to let Microsoft in. I hope he is wearing armored plate on his back.
Can anybody explain how this news relate to this:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1558059,00.asp?kc=EWNWS033104DTX1K0000599
I thought Sun was gonna sell cheapo desktops, and now this happens…?
There are better phrases in the world than “proprietary UNIX,” but UNIX is such an odd duck (take a look at http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html) that any accurate description would be a few paragraphs long.
OS X has a bunch of different layers, some of which are proprietary and some of which aren’t. The underlying OS, however, is about as non-proprietary as they come–the mach kernal combined with BSD.
A large percentage of OS X isn’t even Mac-orginated–it is NEXTSTEP, even down to the freaking rotating beachball, much of the directory structure, etc.
This has to be April Fools! This can’t be real, can it?
In other news, Apple announces OS X is now available for PCs.
yeah: “makes Sun the Apple Computer of the Unix world”
means first fatazz Bill hosed dumazz Steve, now also gets Beam-me-up-Scotty…
Sun just sold out all Java and Solaris users. He was looking short-term, and with Sun in the red, settled for a decent wad of cash. As rlhamon noted, he sold Sun to M$ for $2 billion (or whatever the amount was). M$ escapes legal action yet again. And this one could’ve done some significant damage too.
Where is the DoJ Anti-Trust Division? Out to lunch, bought by Mr Bill himself. The EU slaps a modest fine on Micro$oftopoly and Sen Bill Frist (R) Majority Leader calls it “anti-american”. The DoJ cries and other “officials” claim it is the start of a trade war. Our Government is not for sale, it has been sold- lock, stock and barrell to the monster of Redmond. Time-Warner, saddled with debt, settles the Netscape lawsuit for pennies on the dollar. Be, closing up shop, settles for a mere pitance. Sun, battered by the cartel-like actions of the Wintel alliance, sells it’s soul to MicroSoftopoly for $2 Billion. SCO, the joke of the UNIX world, uses Micro$oft money to plant “FUD” on the LINUX movement with lawsuits designed to scare the corporate world into the arms of Bill Gates. Microsoft is even now extending it’s tentacles of DRM into Hollywood and the Recording Industry, and this is just the beginning. When Longhorn comes out, DRM will be attached to almost EVERY file and document of whatever type, not just music and video. Guess who will get a license or per use fee off of the content- Micro$oftopoly. How high can you count? That’s what they want- and they have figured out how to buy off corporations and the politicians who run the Government. M$=Evil Incarnate.
I don’t think even unholy alliances deserve a typo in the title… Please fix it. Unless MDN has been “hickified” an’ we’re all’re gohnna hafta start typin’ like ya’ll, too. Shucks, that might just be more work than it’s worth, now, wudn’t it?
“This move makes Sun the Apple Computer of the Unix world.”
This statement has put my brain into some kind of loop. Total freeze. What’s the break command?
And what on Earth does that mean?
There goes the neighbourhood
No wonder Bill Joy left Sun if he knew this was coming.
Nagromme: Yeah, I couldn’t wrap my mind around that statement either.
I thought Apple was already the “Apple Computer of the Unix world” with OS X.
I am lost.
This is the reason Sun wasn’t willing to make JAVA OSS. Who owns Java right now?
MacBuddy, OpenOffice for OS X is at version 1.1.1 already. K, needs an X11 window manager since it is not aquafied, so?
Install X11.app from Apple – not real need for XFree86 now and other wm – and use OpenOffice at ease. Works as advertised.
In case you’ve all forgotten, it was only after Microsoft announced their alliance with Apple that a lot of people saw buying Macs as a possibility again. If you’re in trouble, announcing that MS is an ally is good for business. Give it five years, and Sun will be bigger than today. Then, like Apple, they will cut the strings between them and Redmond.
McNealy is being clever here. I guess he’ll take the money, but keep MS at arm’s length.
Reminds me of when Apple bought NeXT. Sounds to me like MS has realized that (Longhorn = Copeland) and is going to copy Apple again by basing it’s revised OS on UNIX.
Who says ya can’t buy friends? Or is it that the Microsoft think tank is desperate for a brain transplant? The much-heralded release of Longhorn is now a major embarrassment to Microsoft and is fueling the flames of the critics and the cynics. Gotta wonder if Sun is feeling a bit smug about the whole deal. If things don�t work out as well as planned with Microsoft and Sun will Sun have to return the 1.6 billion dollars?
Hey, XABEX. So what if I copy Apple? What are you gonna do about it? Cry? Whimper? Call yo’ mama? If I hafta copy Apple’s brilliant model of OS then who cares? I will still own the market place. Ha, ha, ha. You guys are dead! Dead! Do you hear me? My little trolls will have to buy my new and beautiful Unix wonder. Hee, hee, hee. I rule the world!
Love, Bill
Maybe J.D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil Trust) was reincarnated as Mr. Bill G himself. Where is Teddy Roosevelt ,”The Trust Buster”, when you need him?
You Microsoft bashers have no clue. The pundits have no clue. Did you all know that Scott McNeely and Steve Ballmer are friends? They went to the same High School in Detroit and were at Harvard together. They have their differences. But a year ago, McNeely called Ballmer and they’ve been hammering out differences since them. (How do I know this? I saw the video of the two of them saying this stuff).
It does not mean the end of Java. It does not mean the end of Solaris. It means Sun’s X-86 servers can now have Windows certification. Their networking will work together. Java and .Net will interoperate.
Why? What miracle brought this about? Heck, that’s easy. Microsoft losing in Europe finally sealed the deal and forced them to agree to the terms that Sun wanted. They had to pay Sun what they owed them for Java.
It only goes to show that Europe knows what to do with monopolists. And when you do what you should with them, they start acting differently.
Would that the U.S. Department of Justice applied their rules equally. DeBeers can’t operate in the US, but Microsoft can. And it has nothing to do with DeBeers being in South Africa and MS in Redmond. It’s incompetence and selling out to the highest bidder.
Bottom line, enforce anti-trust laws, and even the worst monopolist falls into line rather than be destroyed.
Okay,
So does this mean that Office for Mac will be no more and Office for Solaris will be released shortly.
Will Microsoft turn SUN into their “proof of a non-monopoly” plaything. Leaving Apple by the curb-side.
I tell you if there was ever a need for AppleOffice 1.0 (or whatever Steve wants to call it) the time is now.
Please excuse me as I continue with my Keynote lesson …
Thanks,
CDL
[MacBuddy, OpenOffice for OS X is at version 1.1.1 already. K, needs an X11 window manager since it is not aquafied, so?]
My point was that there’s no NATIVE version.
[Install X11.app from Apple – not real need for XFree86 now and other wm – and use OpenOffice at ease. Works as advertised.]
Running WordXP thru VPC on a Mac works as advertised too. But, not natively, correct?
Yes, there’s a work-around for OO, and yes it’s free. But, that wasn’t what was originally offered. Of course I probably shouldn’t have confused a very slight passing comment that ‘it could be made available’, into ‘it will be available’. But as they had the Windows version (before the SO/OO split) and ‘did’ the Linux version FOR FREE, why not do a Mac version. Chances are, we’d even have paid for it. (No, really)
I really should stop jumping to conclusions
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Anyway, this news was like a kick in my teeth yesterday. I swear it was Friday the 13th. Too many ‘problems’ biting at my backside, and I cracked. (Note to self: Just say no to internet, when you’re already upset.)
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After some pizza, I took a look at the video of McNealy & Ballmer. Interesting body language. Ballmer was too talkative, even for him. Scott seemed very, “uh, let’s get this over with”-ish. (Or was it the mushrooms?
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It is strange that Apple, Sun or any tech company could seem to do better after being validated by the twice convicted ‘illegal monopoly’ M$. But, whatever works. Whatever keeps true competition alive.
I guess Scott will – like a true soldier- be all smiley, until M$ makes their deposits. Besides, in order for Sun to win, M$ doesn’t have to lose.
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This is the true axis of evil….
If Microsoft thinks adding Sun somehow makes them more potent against IBM/Linux, they are once again bent. It’s a hail mary, nothing more.