Here's another interesting one. This IMHO is a major medium-term execution challenge for SUN. They have to make this alliance work in a hurry (where "work" means developing high-quality, popular products). The Netscape browser has made zero progress for at least the last year. There was that whole ultra-pathetic open source "Mozilla" project which roared mightily and brought forth Jack Squat.
I don't worry much about Y2K or the Profusion chipset or Merced or Windows 2000 or any of that usual stuff. I worry about the UltraSparc III and this.
Regards,
--QwikSand
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -(Dow Jones)- America Online Inc.'s Netscape Communications Corp. unit Tuesday said Sun Microsystems Inc. will continue development of Netscape's browsers.
America Online (AOL) said Sun Microsystems, its Palo Alto, Calf.-based partner (SUNW), will sell the current version of Netscape's Mission Control Desktop and will work in the development of the next major version of the Netscape Communicator browser.
The alliance with Sun, initiated at the same time as last year's purchase of Netscape, is part of AOL's attempt to lessen its dependence upon Microsoft Corp. and its Internet Explorer browser, and move traditional software tasks online.
Mission Control Desktop allows computer users to deploy software and applications from a central browser.
Netscape said Sun Microsystems plans to develop Mission Control Desktop for the next generation Netscape browser and electronic-mail clients running on Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Mac OS, Solaris Operating Environment and Linux platforms.
Separately, Sun said that it has expanded its eSun services from offering just online purchasing to an integrated set of services and hardware including on-line buying programs, customer profiling, and online technical support.
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