Update on Microsoft and Sun Partnership

by Alex Woodie

It's been eight months since Microsoft and Sun Microsystems buried the hatchet, called off the lawyers, and committed to working with each other for the long haul. Last week, the companies issued a status report and held a press conference to update the world about their young union. Much of the work up to this point has centered around operating system interoperability and developing new Web services specs.

Sun and Microsoft--two of the bitterest of enemies in the IT world--shocked the industry when they announced the end of litigation against each other and a new strategic partnership together on April 2. In exchange for calling off the lawsuits, Sun received a nearly $2 billion settlement from Microsoft, and the two entered into a 10-year partnership (see "Sun Settles Microsoft Lawsuits, Inks Collaboration Agreement").

Two hundred and forty four days into that 10-year partnership, progress is being made--in some areas more than others.

In a press conference with Microsoft executives last week, Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's chief technology officer, said there are two main goals to the partnership: working together on new Web services protocols for the future, and making Sun and Microsoft products as interoperable as possible for the present. The common thread for both goals is helping their mutual customers, he says. "The thing that really helped shape this, and has put a lot of texture and form on the relationship, is that we've focused on the customer," Papadopoulos says.

Some of the early collaboration between Sun and Microsoft concerned preparing Sun's Java Virtual Machine and Star Office productivity suite for Windows XP Service Pack 2. Microsoft's development of a proprietary JVM was one of the original sources of litigation between the two companies, and as a condition of their resolution, Microsoft is getting out of the business of writing JVMs for Windows and is leaving that to its new partner. Executives for the two companies say it was a very satisfying thing to have Sun's Java experts and Microsoft's Windows kernel experts working together for the good of their customers.

The companies have also worked on certifying Sun's new low-end, Advanced Micro Devices-powered X86 computer business for the Windows operating system. Sun is currently rolling out support for the Windows operating system among its workstations, servers, and storage arrays, and Papadopoulos says Windows will be key for Sun's 64-bit computing strategy, along with 64-bit versions of Red Hat Linux and Solaris. This will have to wait, of course, until Microsoft ships Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, which is expected in the first half of 2005.

Sun's plan is to let users pick and choose which operating system they want to run on their Opteron-powered servers. "What we get to do with our Opteron server products is actually offer our customers a unified platform that allows them to repurpose equipment across those software stacks," Papadopoulos says. "And if you combine that with what we're doing in things like WS-Management, and potential for N1 and DSI interaction fit, it really provides a much more interesting and easier-to-manage fabric for the customer."

On the workstation side, customers today can buy a new Sun workstation with either Windows or Solaris. "Microsoft has also provided us with marketing support and promoting these workstations to Microsoft-certified professionals," Papadopoulos says.

On the storage side, Sun has worked to make sure it supports Microsoft's APIs for Virtual Disk Service and Volume Copy Shadow Service on its new storage 6920 storage arrays, which has achieved the "Designed for Windows" logo qualification. Papadopoulos says that this "gives our customers that assurance that we're playing well together, and that they can depend upon this for provisioning things like SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange."

In the future, interoperability between Windows and Sun's gear will be handled at a new competency center the company's are building on Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus. "There will be lots of shiny Sun equipment there that enables customers to come in and do real-world testing of their applications in these heterogeneous, interoperable environments," Papadopoulos says.

Web Services

In terms of software, there are several areas where the two companies are working together, with Web services and identity management being the two most prominent areas. Several products in Sun's identity management stable--including Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition, Java System Access Manager, and Java System Identity Manager--were recently certified for Windows server. Currently, the companies are working to certify Sun's Access Manager and Identity Manager products against Microsoft's Active Directory for user credentialing.

Microsoft and Sun each have their own visions of how Web services and service-oriented architectures will play out, with their respective DSI and N1 programs. But both companies are trying to avoid the black eye that will afflict them both if they don't provide customers with enough interoperability and flexibility. To that end, the companies have collaborated (along with other vendors) on four Web services specifications, including WS-Addressing, WS-Eventing, WS-MetadataExchange, and WS-Management.

Hardware and software interoperability is hard work, and Sun and Microsoft--bitter enemies for more than 10 years--have had to find ways to work together and communicate. Of course, this means meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.

Andrew Layman, Microsoft's director of distributed systems interoperability, says similar cultures at Sun and Microsoft have helped the two companies work together, and that executives with the companies have stressed the importance of communication, not only among themselves but also among their technical staff who get the actual work done and the customers who actually use the stuff. All IT vendors say they listen to their customers, but it's another thing to put that into a regimented practice.

"Each company has dedicated relationship managers who meet weekly with their counterparts, resolve issues; our architects and technical teams meet together," Layman says. "There have been 15 executive meetings in the past five months, and these include meetings between Greg [Papadopoulos] and [Microsoft chief software architect] Bill Gates, as well as [Microsoft chief executive] Steve Ballmer and [Sun chief executive] Scott McNealy."