Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Development
    • Development

    Rivals Play Nice

    By
    Peter Galli
    -
    May 23, 2005
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Longtime rivals and mutual antagonists Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. are making progress on their year-old cooperation, having moved from the courtroom to the lab and now entering the market.

      Until now, there has been scant evidence of tangible deliverables from the partnership. But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Sun CEO Scott McNealy changed that by announcing a series of measures for enhancing product interoperability, including the development of new specifications that enable Web single sign-on between systems that use Liberty and WS-* Web services architectures.

      At a press and analyst conference in Palo Alto, Calif., recently, Ballmer and McNealy said the companies have jointly developed and published two draft specs: Web SSO (Single Sign-On) MEX (Metadata Exchange Protocol) and Web SSO Interoperability Profile.

      The specs enable browser-based Web single sign-on between security domains that use Liberty ID-FF and WS-Federation. Products that support Web SSO MEX and Web SSO Interop Profile will let companies give users an improved Web single-sign-on experience from their browsers.

      Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., and Sun, of Palo Alto, will continue to develop the draft specs through the Web services protocol workshop process and ultimately submit them to a standards organization for finalization and ratification as industry standards.

      “We have been hard at work for the past 12 months, and these are the results, which I think are pretty impressive,” Ballmer said.

      Drafts of the specs can be found at Microsofts and Suns Web sites. The companies also announced plans to support the new specs in their product portfolios, including Microsofts Windows Server and Suns Java Enterprise System.

      There are several areas where the two companies can now deliver products that customers can use, Ballmer said, but he stressed that the challenge Sun and Microsoft have undertaken is not to merge their products but rather to have them interoperate while the companies continue to innovate separately.

      Specifically, relief is on the way for users who want their applications to run on Microsofts .Net and Suns Java platforms and for IT managers who want to be able to log in to one console, Ballmer said. For their part, developers want to run applications that live in both the Java and .Net worlds and to be able to stitch them together in various ways, he said.

      The storage market is also booming, and Suns recent purchase of Tarantella Inc. will help further facilitate interoperability between the Sun and Microsoft components, Ballmer said. There is still a lot more to do, however, as the list of needs from customers is long, so “we will be hard at work for the next 12 months as well,” Ballmer said.

      Suns McNealy acknowledged that the work has been tough and that it has really come together only over the last three months or so. “What we have achieved and what we plan going forward is quite impressive,” McNealy said.

      Microsoft and Sun have established a joint advisory committee of 10 shared large customers that give the two companies a list of their needs in order of priority, and single sign-on topped that list. Other items on the list include thin-client access, certifying of storage environments and manageability, McNealy said.

      Fred Killeen, director of systems development and chief technology officer for General Motors Information Systems and Services, in Detroit, was at the event and said he welcomed the moves toward cross-domain Web single sign-on. “We expect it to help reduce complexity and cost for us, and we are going to look at how to implement this going forward and take full advantage of it,” Killeen said.

      GM has more than 1 million users worldwide and a very large installed base, so it is critical to bring together the two technologies that Microsoft and Sun provided. “We are developing a proof of concept and a Microsoft desktop that will authenticate to Active Directory but then allow single sign-on to our Sun portal world, Killeen said.

      Charlie Feld, executive vice president of portfolio management at Electronic Data Systems Corp., a partner of both Microsoft and Sun, spoke in support of the two companies efforts.

      Feld said EDS, which has hundreds of servers and millions of devices connected all over the world, has been hampered by the complexity built into the Plano, Texas, companys 40-year-old IT environment. “Getting to work now in this open and interoperable world is very exciting,” he said. “We are entering a new era now, where interoperability will reverse 40 years of IT and allow us to focus on the supply chain and customer.”

      Everything needs to be simplified and modified, Feld said, adding that multilateral agreements between companies such as Microsoft and Sun “takes us forward in a profound way.”

      Peter Galli
      Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Big Data and Analytics

      Alteryx’s Suresh Vittal on the Democratization of...

      James Maguire - May 31, 2022 0
      I spoke with Suresh Vittal, Chief Product Officer at Alteryx, about the industry mega-shift toward making data analytics tools accessible to a company’s complete...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      IGEL CEO Jed Ayres on Edge and...

      James Maguire - June 14, 2022 0
      I spoke with Jed Ayres, CEO of IGEL, about the endpoint sector, and an open source OS for the cloud; we also spoke about...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×