Dear Bala: OH MY GAWD!!! Are we an E-commerce company now?? Are we going to run to $300??? Here is the PR I guess you are referring too. jdn
America Online and Sun Microsystems Detail Product Strategy of Sun-Netscape Alliance
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 1999--
Alliance to Build and Market Comprehensive Portfolio of
E-Commerce Software to Turbocharge the Net Economy
America Online, Inc. (NYSE:AOL), the world's leading provider of branded interactive services, and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW), a leader in network computing products and services, today unveiled more details of their vision and strategy for the strategic collaboration between the two companies, now referred to as the Sun-Netscape Alliance.
In the first in a series of announcements expected over the next several months, the companies provided details of their product strategy in the E-commerce infrastructure and application software areas, as well as organizational structure in sales, services and support.
The companies announced that they would:
-- Develop a unified, next-generation product line on an accelerated
timeline, while maintaining support for the current set of
products from both companies;
-- Ship their first collaborative product by the first quarter of
the year 2000; and
-- Sell their full suite of products on multiple platforms through a
dedicated 500-member sales force.
Chief Operating Officer of Sun Microsystems, Ed Zander, commented: "We are launching the industry's first comprehensive, multi-platform, E-commerce solution to accelerate the rapid move of businesses to the Net Economy. The strategy unveiled today demonstrates the natural synergy between the Sun and Netscape products, as well as the opportunity that Internet-powerhouse America Online provides with its consumer expertise and audience reach."
Barry Schuler, President of America Online's Interactive Services Group, said: "There are two big phenomena that make this strategic alliance a compelling opportunity. First, consumers are coming online in droves and accelerating E-commerce. Second, businesses are embracing network computing on top of Internet standards as the architecture for all of their back-end systems. For E-commerce to make it to the next level, there have to be new, comprehensive, integrated solutions that make every part of the commerce value chain much easier. That's what this strategic Alliance will do: enhance the value chain all the way from silicon to eyeballs."
"It's hard to imagine three companies more responsible for driving the growth and success of the Internet," said Mark Tolliver, President and General Manager of the Sun-Netscape Alliance. "By combining forces, the Alliance is singularly poised to take the Net Economy to the next level."
The Alliance Product and Services Portfolio
The Alliance product portfolio will provide customers with the industry's most scalable, integrated infrastructure software and a family of production-ready E-commerce applications. Products will be offered on the industry's most widely available computing platforms, including HP, IBM, Linux, Windows NT and Sun.
The Alliance E-commerce infrastructure is the industry's most comprehensive and highly integrated software that delivers secure communications, collaboration, and commerce services. The infrastructure product portfolio includes: messaging (e-mail) and calendar, collaboration, web, application, directory (network phone book) and certificate (security) servers.
Enterprise Service Providers, Internet Service Providers and Mega Portals all demand the proven reliability, availability and capacity of the Alliance's commercial-grade product set.
In the same way that packaged application from enterprise software companies (such as PeopleSoft, SAP and Oracle) fueled the growth of the ERP market (Enterprise Resource Planning), packaged E-commerce applications will accelerate the growth of the Net Economy.
The Alliance offers a family of production-ready applications, including commerce exchange, procurement, selling, and billing.
This software family allows enterprises to bring the best of their business practices online, integrate with a wide range of existing enterprise applications, reduce the cost and increase the speed of doing business, develop loyal customer relationships through targeted sales and services, and get to market faster with comprehensive functionality.
Key Product Strategy Decisions
The Alliance announced key roadmaps across the entire product portfolio, including directions for messaging and collaboration, directory and security and application servers. In messaging and collaboration, there will be one additional release of both products from Sun and Netscape. A fully collaborative product will ship in the first quarter of 2000.
For its directory, security and management servers, the Alliance will use Netscape's industry leading directory product and will augment it with key technology features from Sun.
The Alliance also announced more specific details on product strategy. "Our similarities enabled us to quickly converge on a unified product line. Throughout the initial planning process, however, the highest priority objective has been to meet existing commitments to both Sun and Netscape customers," added Tolliver. "In addition, we now have a significant increase in investment in key areas and have the opportunity to leverage our similar architectures, broad use of Internet standards and common vision to '.com' the world."
Further, in the application server area, the Alliance has already, or will, release the next generation of both companies' products (Sun's NetDynamics application server, announced March 10, and Netscape's application server scheduled for release later this year).
The Alliance will deliver a collaboratively developed product in early 2000.
As previously announced, future enhancements of the Netscape Communicator product line will be developed by America Online. More specific details and roadmaps are available on the web at sun.com.
Sales and Market Development
The Alliance will have a dedicated sales force that will sell the full suite of products on multiple platforms. The group will also offer a full spectrum of support and integration services and will consist of both Sun and Netscape software solution experts.
In a related announcement, Sun unveiled a 50-city worldwide seminar series aimed at customers seeking more details on how to
".com" their company. The "Get The .com Advantage" Roadshow series will be hosted by Alliance executives and partners. The tour begins in May, will be open to the media and will run through the middle of next year.
About America Online, Inc.
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and E-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 16 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.com portals; and the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers.
Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The Computer" has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of high-quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet.
With more than $10 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at sun.com.
CONTACT:
America Online
Ann Brackbill, 703/265-1746
Abrackbill@aol.com
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