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HELL HAS FROZEN AND I T S BEA UTIFUL

Sun and Microsoft Announce Deeper Alliance

By Omer Qureshi

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IntroductionSunandMicroso-formdeeperalliancebutthingswere notthis rosy,andnottoolongagoin

my past life when we were consolida;ng massive datacenters of a large financial ins;tu

;onfromIBM(AS400andeseries)class serverstoa Dell +Compaq(HP)WinTel plaNormand

SUe29000smix.

Wealways admiredSUshardwarereliability(thoughabitpricy)aswell as theirgreatpla;num

supportSLA(alsocomeswithas;ckershock)andthereforewepushedSuntoseekwaysofpro

vidingtheir hardwareand itsreliability torunWindowscommodityworkloads.Weweretold

thatitwill bea colddayinhellwhenthathappens.7years andtwomonths laterthehell has

indeedbecomeacoldplace.

ProfileSunandMicroso-hastradi;onallycompetedoneverythingandanythingwell,star;ngfrom

theOS(SolarisServerandWorksta;on),PlaNormManagement+Virtualiza;on,AppPlat(Java,

JVM,Jii)andrecentlyonthebusinessproduc;vitywithStarOffice(opensourceplaNormcom

petesagainstMSOffice).

TheAn;trustwaroverJVM(JavaVirtual Machine)andMSJVMrighttobebundledinWindows

madethings worst anda major sourceofpainfor thecustomers,whowouldlikedbeer in

teroperability.

So what made the hell freeze?TwowordsmarketshareSunhasbeenlosingonallfronts,on plaNormwithMicroso-and

Linux and even to IBM mainframe.OnAppPlat against .et (VSTS), BEA (Web Logic), IBM

(Eclipse,WebSphere),OracleandGoogle(AJAXandAPIS)etcinfactthestockpriceisindica;ve

ofthisdemiseonitsheydaycloseto$80andnowabare$5.50.

SobackinApril 2004,SteveBallmerandScoMcealy shookhands andMicroso-alsocuta

checktoSunfornearly$2billion andanotherseveral billionsinso-dollarinfusion,the endre

sultSunwouldstopitsli;ga;onsagainstMicroso-onMSJVManditsdistribu;onandinstead

focuson interoperability inthefieldofweb2.0 technologiesandplaNormsupport andman

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How it might help customers1. Sunhasa greathardwareplaNorm(SunFireseries64bit)andWindowsServerofferingonthisplaNormisgreatnewsforthecustomers

2. Sunis alsoemergingasa bigplayeronthewholeGreenCompu3ngturfandcanhelpcustomersdeployWindowswhilereducingtheircarbonfootprint

3. InteroperabilityonVirtualiza3on Windowsvirtualinstancesrunningas guestsonSunSolarishostOSandviceversa

4. InteroperabilityonManagement AbilitytomanageWindowsServerandclientfromSunCentralDatacentersuiteandviceversa

5. MSJVM (JavaVirtualMachine)perhaps returnofMSJVM inWindows Vista SP1,Windows7andWindowsServer2008.

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