Sun, Google To Collaborate On Software Services Platform

Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy and Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said that Sun would bundle and distribute the Google toolbar with Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in late October. Sun claims JRE has more than 20 million downloads per month.

In exchange, the pair will collaborate to enhance and codistribute Sun's OpenOffice, OpenSolaris, JRE and Open Document format technologies. For instance, Google's searching service and e-mail services could be tightly integrated with OpenOffice and OpenSolaris, McNealy and Schmidt said.

While refraining from identifying Microsoft as the key target of the pact, McNealy said the two would "leverage the network effect" of the Internet to create wonderful synergistic opportunities for both companies. He noted that Google has 80 million user visits per month, and the two companies could usher in a new user interface and user platform for the future.

"What Netscape did for the Java run-time, the JRE can do for the Google toolbar," McNealy said Tuesday during a press conference at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. "The HTML browser and Java run-time turbocharged each other, and the [Google] toolbar and Java run-time can do that [for each other] and for Solaris and OpenOffice. This can be a big deal."

He said the partnership with Microsoft announced last year was more or less a "required partnership" driven by customer need for interoperability, while the pact with Google is a more "natural partnership" based on the shared belief that the network--and not the PC--is the computer and the future.

"Windows is the only remnant of the old client/server revenue model and people are still writing .Net applications, [but] that's so last millennium," McNealy quipped. "We're providing what to us feels like [where] the puck is going as far as a platform environment ... there will be a lot of money flowing both ways if we do this right."

Schmidt, who worked for Scott McNealy for 14 years at Sun before becoming CEO at Novell and now Google, hinted that the two companies will collaborate closely on open-source development projects, including OpenSolaris and OpenOffice, which compete against Microsoft Windows and Office, respectively.

Sun President Jonathan Schwartz said Sun will exploit Google's APIs in its Java, operating systems and application products. The Google CEO also said the deal would give all Java users access to Google's special toolbar features such as autocorrection and automatic language translation.

Execs from Sun and Google offered up few additional details about how they would collaborate on OpenOffice and OpenSolaris. Yet they emphasized that both companies are dedicated to the idea of software as a service and that Sun's $2.2 billion R&D engine would be applied to make the Google experience better.

Solution providers have an opportunity to help their Java-based clients access and use the new Google technologies. Ed Pimentel, CEO of AgileCo, said he believes the Sun-Google pairing offers his firm--an open-source solution provider--and his customers a compelling new platform.

"While others focus on developing individual applications, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for Internet2 scale programming, Pimentel said. "Google knows about how to add seemingly incremental features that are actually massively expensive for others to match and [are] cheaper and easier for them to develop.

Easley, S.C.-based AgileCo, for example, built a BisCentral portal and "business accelerator" that leverages Google, Amazon, eBay, PayPal and FedEx. Pimentel noted that Google is running the world's top search engine, Gmail e-mail service with AJAX technology, a beta mapping service, Google Desktop, mobile messaging system and a next-generation SIP/XMPP VoIP service that integrators and open-source developers can use today.

"What if we can use Sun hardware plus its open-source module and extend all of this technology to typical desktop applications like OpenOffice software, then combine them all into one interface and bundle the Google OS?" Pimentel said.