A lot of people hate MSFT. But emotion doesn't help doing business and investing. Maybe both SUNW and MSFT can win IF SUNW people become more realistic. Like it or not, MSFT will win much bigger, if they don't make SUNW a loser. As an investor, I prefer put my money in MSFT than SUNW. Who doesn't want to make more money?
The following is same news but with clearer comments:
Also check this out.
news.com
Sun Finds A Way To Embrace
NT
(09/09/98; 7:12 p.m. ET)
By Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb
If you can't beat them, subvert them.
That's the strategy Sun Microsystems has accused
Microsoft of taking with Java, and now Sun is using it
with Windows NT, announcing Wednesday that it
would support the operating system with a variety of
services.
Sun (company profile) made the announcement at the
Enterprise Computing Forum in New York.
NT is the up-and-coming competitor to Solaris, Sun's
version of the Unix OS. Sun CEO Scott McNealy often
criticized NT, and his company previously followed a
"no NT" strategy.
Now, Sun said, it will make its Solaris Server
compatible with network services from NT, enabling
the Solaris Server to behave as if it were an NT server.
Sun also announced the SunPCi co-processor card,
which will let its Ultra workstations run DOS and
Windows applications. Finally, the company said it will
link its entire line of storage systems to NT.
Sun's goal is to profit from NT's growth without eroding
its own market share. Although Solaris' user base is
growing, NT's is growing twice as fast, according to
many studies. It will now be easier for companies to
maintain networks that are a mix of Solaris and NT.
The new products and services were designed as part
of Project Cascade, an effort with AT&T. Sun is using
AT&T's Advanced Server for Unix to let NT services
run on top of Solaris. The products coming out of
Project Cascade will be available in November, with a
full line ready by next year.
The move is but the latest twist in a strange and bitter
competition between Sun and Microsoft. Besides the
rivalry between Solaris and NT, the two companies
have an ongoing lawsuit over the Java programming
language, which Sun said Microsoft has tried to subvert
and destroy.
For its part, Microsoft (company profile) said it
welcomes interoperability between the systems.
"Microsoft has been working on Unix interoperability
for a long time," said company spokeswoman Kara
Walker.
On May 6, Microsoft introduced Windows Services for
Unix Add-On Pack. This lets users share passwords,
administration, and other services across mixed
environments. It also lets administrators use Windows
NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0 in
Unix environments.
"This is the right thing to do," said analyst Rob Enderle
of Giga Information Group. "Otherwise Sun was going
to become the non-standard platform in a lot of
companies."
This will also allow Sun focus on NT's perceived
weaknesses in the areas of scalability and reliability, he
said. Even companies that want NT environments in
other areas can continue to run databases and other
large scale enterprise systems on Solaris.
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