Sun and MS are friends again

Peace at last: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/36770.html

Consequences include:

[quote]Future Collaboration for Java and .NET Sun and Microsoft have agreed that they will work together to improve technical collaboration between their Java and .NET technologies.
[/quote]

Long article, but the technical details are important and worth a read when you can find the time.
Wow, I can’t believe it!

new JGO project to come JD3D 8)

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/apr04/04-02SunAgreementPR.asp

DOH it’s ture … :’(

The not so good news is that another 10% of Sun staff will be departing.

And there is also this related bit http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/29168.html
about MS shipping Sun’s JRE and making it part of Windows Update… should they lose a certain appeal… which I really hope they do…

I’ve been watching the internal feed here on one of the newsroom feeds I’m filtering in and watching the press conference with Ballmer and McNeally (after the camera is off) has been interesting. The more I watch, the more i’m convinced that McNeally really needs to go. Through much of the conference he had this deer in the headlights look and off camera he’s talking about his accounting problems which clearly Ballmer doesn’t care about. If I hear him say “I’d rather have your problems” one more time I’m going to find out where they are and kick him in the teeth.

[quote]The not so good news is that another 10% of Sun staff will be departing.
[/quote]
hate to see anyone lose their job (politician’s aside), but i hope sun has not pink-slipped any java technology contributors. anyone have the scoop on what departments had layoffs?

The layoffs will be in all divisions and will continue thru’ September …hmmm…

http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5183848.html?tag=nefd_top

[quote]The more I watch, the more i’m convinced that McNeally really needs to go.
[/quote]
You’re kidding right? You’ve just discovered that now? ;D

I’ve seen some really asinine comments attributed to him in the past… the one about software not being important springs immediately to mind. Can’t find a reference to it, but I recall it annoying me at the time.

Nah I’ve felt he needed to go for a long time (need some fresh blood at the helm) - but this was the first time I’d ever seen him in the ‘raw’ and came to that conclusion without any other context.

Today is the greatest day for the future of Java gaming since P-code. IMHO.

The question now is how does this affect JOGL and OpenGL in general.

Wow, that is a complete shock! Way to go EU anti-trust-guy! This is just the tip of the iceberg if Microsofts truly wants to make amends for its anti-competitive ways though…

[quote]Today is the greatest day for the future of Java gaming since P-code. IMHO.

The question now is how does this affect JOGL and OpenGL in general.
[/quote]
No it is not.

I have a bad feeling about Sun and Microsoft joining forces.
Think for a moment.

Both sides will share IP and work on some technologies, one mentioned was single sign on across platforms.
Now sorry for saying this, but what garantee do we have that Sun and MS won’t lock these changes into Solaris and Windows only?

Who knows, Sun may decide to move Java to the great .NET platform and then what?
Both sides can decide to envoke their patents and force everybody to only use their products.

Sure things won’t go this quick, but I’ll believe it when I see it

[quote]Today is the greatest day for the future of Java gaming since P-code. IMHO.

The question now is how does this affect JOGL and OpenGL in general.
[/quote]
Where do you see the advantage for Java gaming? The advantage I see is that Windows may ship with Java again.

I’m very sceptical about the whole thing.

Okay, IMO time. Keep in mind that this is just m,y POV and NOT in any way an official Sun staement.

Got that clear?

I think you do need to be careful in assigning TOO much importance to this event. From where I sit we (a) gto a ncie hunk of cash from MSFT (biggest they’ve ever given anyone I believe) and (b) have basically cleared the impediments to wokring together. How much we DO work together I still think we need to wait and see on.

The differences still remain. We are fundementally different kinds of companies. MSFT runs on money. Sun runs on religion. That fundemental difference can lead to some very differing POVs. I don’t think anyone at Sun is naive enough to think that this suddenly makes MSFT our best buddy, it just clears the for the kind of more-friendly competetion we do with the likes of IBM. But we also know enough (I certainly hope) to watch our backs.

Inre management, you gusy missed the big story entirely. Johnnathon Schwarz has just been made president and COO. This makes him second only to Scott, the same role Zander had before he left. Johnnathon previosuly ran software. This is the man who finally made a home unser his CTO (John Fowler) for the GTG. Thats very promising for us in general. It also says a lot about Sun’s current views on the importance of sofwtare.

lastly, I just have to add that I think you need to give Scott a bit of a break. He’s called on to predict the future all the time and he won’t always be right. Remember it was IBM’s founder, TJ Watson who said:

“I think the world market for computers is about 5.”

Scott has always supported our efforts in the game space as best he could and without him we wouldn’t be anywhere today. I’ve foudn him to be a dynamic and caring leader who really udnerstands the contributions that indviduals make to a company.

Frankly, if Scott formed a new company and asked me tomorrow, I’d galdly go work directly for him.

BTW

My other interpretation of events is that the CLR part of their strategy is failing. They’ve realized that making a good Java-like system is neither cheap nor easy. They are hoping therefor to be able to bring Java back in to suppor their .NET strategy.

Thsi is just my interpretation but if so then its nothing but good news for thsoe of you trying to deploy Java apps in an MSFT desktop environment…

[quote]BTW

My other interpretation of events is that the CLR part of their strategy is failing. They’ve realized that making a good Java-like system is neither cheap nor easy. They are hoping therefor to be able to bring Java back in to suppor their .NET strategy.
[/quote]
I’d be inclined to agree with this; MS doesn’t normally do things like this unless some plank of their recent strategy has “failed” (in their opinion). One of their defining features is a willingness to do multi-million-dollar U-turns as soon as it becomes clear in reality that they were either wrong in the first place, or that the theory just doesn’t seem to work in the marketplace.

And, of course, since the birth of .NET, Java has gained immensely in performance - particularly in networking - which probably makes it a much more attractive tool in their eyes.

Jeff, sorry, but this deal is major fuckup, especially if, as you’ve put it, Sun is religion driven. Just ask Rich.

I’m extremely sceptical. Although most of Sun guys repeat the same denial “we got 2B$ and lost nothing” mantra, this is a major blow to Sun’s integrity and trustworthiness that some of us valued so much.

[quote]this is a major blow to Sun’s integrity and trustworthiness that some of us valued so much.
[/quote]
I have to disagree entirely.

Sun challenged Microsoft and won. I do not see this as Sun selling out, whatsoever. What did you expect the outcome of Sun’s disagreements with Microsoft to be? Other than Microsoft having to pay more money, and requiring Microsoft to ship a modern, compliant JVM, I don’t see how it could get much better. And it seems like the compliant JVM will happen, though the wording of the articles I read make is sound like they are only required to ship their old 1.1 VM.