Sun Lays NetDynamics Road Map
Oct. 26, 1998 (InternetWeek - CMP via COMTEX) -- Sun Microsystems last week laid out plans for its NetDynamics Inc. acquisition, walking a fine line between pledging support for cross-platform computing while at the same time using the deal to boost Sun technologies, including Java and Solaris.
The road map was delivered last week as Sun officially closed the
deal for NetDynamics, announced in July. Terms were not disclosed.
Immediately, the vendor played up a handful of new customers-including
Federal Express Corp. and Countrywide Home Loans-and set the path for
future development of the NetDynamics application server.
Most significantly, Sun said it will offer the NetDynamics server as
a discounted, add-on bundle option for all Sun Solaris servers. The
bundle will cost $3,500 for a developer package and $13,500 for a
deployment server-a 20 percent reduction from the current NetDynamics
pricing model. In the future, the app server and OS will become even
more closely integrated, said Alan Baratz, president of Sun's Java
Software.
Mike Onders, chief technology officer of consumer financial services
at GE Capital, and a NetDynamics user, said, "The closer Sun can make
[the application server] a standard operating system service, the
easier they will make it on enterprise customers."
The next version of NetDynamics will ship in the first quarter of
next year, with full support for Enterprise JavaBeans 1.0 and other Sun Java technologies, as well as support for Microsoft's Component Object Model, via a so-called NetDynamics platform adapter component.
Sun also last week said it has licensed Inprise Corp.'s VisiBroker
Integrated Transaction Service, an object-oriented transaction monitor
for distributed applications. That capability will not make it into the next release.
"It's important for customers to have a heterogeneous computing
environment, and Sun is acknowledging that," said David Kelly, an
analyst with Hurwitz Group. "I think it's natural for users to have a
question in their mind in terms of how much does Sun actually want to
support an NT product. Clearly, it's got to stick in Scott McNealy's
throat."
Sun executives, however, stressed their support for cross-platform
computing.
"Conceptually, a services and application server layer widely
distributed on a network and closely integrated with an operating
system is very important," said Steve Zocchi, director of marketing for Sun's NetDynamics unit. "The fundamental difference [between Sun's
vision and Microsoft's] is we don't believe it can be encompassed in a
single operating system. The enterprise is not just one OS."
According to Zocchi, Sun will augment the NetDynamics application
server line with new platforms and capabilities to support and deliver
more distributed small-form apps at the Java Internet Business Expo
trade show in December.
NetDynamics' pragmatic approach to the heterogeneous nature of
enterprise back ends has clearly influenced Sun's strategic thinking,
Zocchi said, while Sun's vision of a networked environment that
includes things such as embedded servers and smart cards will have an
impact on future versions of the NetDynamics server.
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By: Richard Karpinski
Copyright 1998 CMP Media Inc.
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