A view of Sun's strategy from Ars Technica
A great many years of my life in computer journalism were spent listening to Sun's long-time chief executive Scott McNealy launching verbal attacks on Microsoft while his business was being eaten alive by Linux and Intel. McNealy finally did sign a 10-year deal with Microsoft in 2004, as he was on the way out of the door. However, it still comes as a bit of a shock that his successor, Jonathan Schwartz, has now signed up to sell Windows.
The Microsoft press release bills the deal as an expansion of their strategic alliance. Other parts of the agreement include:
Sun and Microsoft will work together to ensure that Solaris runs well as a guest on Microsoft virtualization technologies and that Windows Server runs well as a guest in Sun's virtualization technologies.
Sun and Microsoft will continue to collaborate to advance the worldwide deployment of the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV and multimedia platform on Sun server and storage systems.
Microsoft and Sun will build an Interoperability Center on Microsoft's Redmond campus. The center will include a demonstration area for Sun x64 systems, act as a working lab for Windows on Sun benchmarks and sales tools, and support customers running proofs of concept for projects focused on Windows on Sun x64 systems, including joint Sun/Microsoft solutions in areas such as databases, e-mail and messaging, virtualization, and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) support in Sun Ray thin clients.
Clearly the deal means much more to Sun than it does to Microsoft. "One hundred percent of Sun's customers use both Solaris and Windows," says Sun Executive Vice-President John Fowler in Business Week. Sun needs interoperability, though it comes with some risk. "For example, it could make it easier for customers to migrate jobs now done on Sun gear to cheaper Windows alternatives," says BusinessWeek.
Sun selling Windows Server could also give Microsoft a small boost in the server market, where, contrary to the Linux hype, it is not doing too badly. Bear in mind that Windows started with exactly 0% of the server market, and on the latest Gartner numbers, Windows has just gained another two percentage points to 67.1%.
Update: Fake Steve Jobs has revealed "the truth", which is that the Sun deal with the new Borg (Microsoft) is part of a plan to get Sun taken over by the Original Borg (IBM). MLP aka My Little Pony (Schwartz) writes:
"So how do we bring them back to the table? This is where the Borg comes in. There is only one thing that IBM cares about and that's the Borg. They've spent the past fifteen years serving as a private patron for any initiative that could cause grief to the Borg. Java, ODF, Open Office, Linux. They're a bit, shall we say, myopic about this. Like, obsessed.... We make it clear to IBM that we don't want to do this, that it's very distasteful to us but we have no choice, and that if they were to buy us we would, of course, shut down the Windows server program."
