Sun and MS are friends again

Miscellaneous Topics
#41

[quote]Couple of random comments…

First, Rich Green. He was mentioned briefly here - maybe some of you saw the Register article? Well, it very much looks like they got it wrong - he’d already decided to leave to join a start-up anyway:
http://business.newsforge.com/business/04/04/05/2138237.shtml?tid=111&tid=85
Here’s a good quick analysis of the higher level issues:


[/quote]
So says Sun. And after The Register story broke.

MY four questions:

Why a guy with a almost a decade investment in advocating Java AND offered a higest software possition is leaving a company for a startup, the very same day MS deal was announced?

Why a guy that announced “weeks ago” he is leaving company is left to finish a 2B$ deal?

Why after all the damage that news has made, a guy still hasn’t said a word about his departure?

And why the that same guy, so much involved in talks, and so determined to leave, 2 days before a deal, uses “we” all over the place when talking about Sun left “door still open to opensource Java”, citing compatibility-brand-license problems, while a new software chief John Loiacono, sitting next to him, oposes with less-optimistic viewpoint, noting previous Sun pronouncements that Sun would make Java open-source as soon as IBM opens up its products such as WebSphere.

It seems that they are teaming up on a few points. Identity managment comes to mind. And DRM is next thing that Shwartz mentions today. And IP protection “bussines” was mentioned in every other sentence. It still rings in my ears that Ballmer said something in line of “we have two best platforms for development today, with all other guys nowhere in sight”. Which is true, but I would very much like them to continue to compete.

Sun does have some work to do to reassure their friends who wanted to stay as far as they can from MS, that Sun and Java are stil a best choice. I’m happy to see that that kind of annoucements are all over the place today, but actually, only time will tell.

On the bright side, Sun is still doing some Java:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/04/06/HNjava16_1.html

and it seems that “isolates” are back! However, timing mentioned for 1.6 seems pretty unrealistic (beta scheduled for 2004 fall?! release for 2005? Wasn’t there 1.5.1 release planned?)

#42

[quote]Nice sumamtion. Thanks Chris.

(Btw what are you up to these days? PM me I’d love an update.)
[/quote]
Probably of most interest to you, I’ve almost finished the 2nd article in my series on TLP optimised CPU design (or what Sun call thoughput computing). Part 1 is here:
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000312

The 2nd article is about Niagara :slight_smile:

#43

FWIW I heard about Rich’s departure inside of Sun before I herard about the MSFT agreement.

You could just as easily suppose MSFT signed because Rich left. shrug

Beware synchronicity. As any reputable scientist knows correlation does NOT imply causality.

#44

“Sun’s Going to Cut 30% of Its Staff Not 9%, Says Maureen O’Gara”

What is this? An April joke? 30% ? Unbelievable. :frowning:
In case that should be true, which I don’t hope, it would explain why SUN and MS are “friends”… because SUN had got very serious problems. Oh no… live sucks. :frowning:

#45

Well Jeff, that is a more positive way of looking at things.
Time will tell on this one, but sanity is fighting a losing battle these days.

(Microsoft TCPA, Software patents, lawsuits, and people like SCO trying to bash out free software with support of some companies)

I have become a bit cynical these days and wonder if I’m in the wrong profession :slight_smile:

#46

James Gosling has a comment on the settlement which is very reassuring: http://today.java.net/jag/page7.html#59

Will.