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Q & A
John Fowler, VP and CTO, Software elaborates on the landmark
agreement between Sun and Microsoft.
Thursday, April 8, 4:00 PM PT
In a landmark agreement, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft Corporation reached an agreement last week that they had
brought an end to all existing litigation. The agreement represents a new era between the two companies, establishing a
mutually productive and valuable framework for cooperation and competition that represents a model for the entire
industry. John Fowler, VP and CTO, Software elaborates on the impact of this decision with respect to Sun's Software
business, including its impact on Java and other standards efforts, open source, etc.
Q. What does this agreement mean?
A. Today, at a minimum, it means that the litigation between Sun and Microsoft has ended. More importantly, this
agreement is about broadening interoperability and choice for our customers. Looking forward, the community will see a
less acrimonious, but healthy competitive environment between .Net and Java. Competition is a good thing -- it fosters
innovation.
Q. What are the next steps for both companies?
A. The two companies will be establishing executive level contacts and program directors to manage the relationship in
the next couple of weeks. We will then be proposing some efforts to go explore in the area of interoperability.
Q: Can you give me more specifics on how this agreement impacts product plans and product interoperability?
A. We just reached an agreement with Microsoft late last week. Sun already has products which do an excellent job of
interoperating with Microsoft products in mixed environments for both the server and the desktop. The elimination of
legal issues with Microsoft and our entering into a 10 year agreement to collaborate on interoperability makes us the
leading choice for mixed environments, which is what most customers have today.
We pursued a long term agreement so that we can make the kind of commitment customers want and expect in the
products they depend on. The agreement is so new it is impossible to give product specifics at this time, beyond the
products we already have today. Also, it is important to remember that this is a two-way agreement, and Microsoft will
be making their own decisions about their products.
Q. What does this mean for Java? Will Microsoft join the JCP?
A. Sun continues to fully support Java through the Java Community Process. With respect to Microsoft joining the
JCP, as always, we certainly welcome them to join and participate in standards setting collaboration to benefit
customers and contribute to innovation.
Q. What does this mean for standards?
A. Sun will continue to vigorously pursue standards with the same policies and strategy as we have in the past. This
does open the door for Sun and Microsoft to collaborate on standards, which we will be doing, but does not decrease
our standards activities.
Q. Does this mean that Sun is now against Open Source?
A. No. In fact, outside of the University of California at Berkeley, Sun is the largest contributor of open-source code on
the planet and we will continue to contribute to the community. Sun is as committed as ever to the Open Source
community and we have hundreds of engineers working on projects from Apache and Mozilla to Jxta and Open Office.
Q. What does this mean for Microsoft distributing the current JVM? Does this mean MSFT's old JVM will go away?
A. Our #1 goal is to support customers. There are currently 7 million downloads of the current JVM a month and more
than 60% of OEMs ship the latest JVM direct to customers. Microsoft can continue to support the old JDK version 1.1.4
to support their install base, but we're not sure how long the term will be. We're still working out the details, we just
signed the agreement. Please stay tuned.
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