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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DRRISK who wrote (49435)	6/6/2002 8:06:44 AM
From: DRRISK	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Do you think these guys will ever get along? WSJ(6/6) Microsoft's Plans For Web Tool Stoke Sun's Ire By Rebecca Buckman Microsoft Corp., firing the latest shot in its battle with rival Sun Microsystems Inc. over the standards governing Web commerce, today is to announce plans for a new Internet-security technology that it says will allow companies to more easily share information with business partners and customers. The technology -- named "TrustBridge" and due out sometime next year -- springs from previously announced security work Microsoft has been doing with International Business Machines Corp. and VeriSign Inc., a Web security company based in Mountain View, Calif. The technology will run on Microsoft-powered computer servers and help manage how different Web systems talk to each other, allowing people to do business on multiple Web sites. A purchasing manager, for instance, might deal more easily with an outside supplier online. "There are a lot of companies that want to do this deeper [Web] integration, but they don't feel like they have the tools yet," said Adam Sohn, a Microsoft product manager. TrustBridge will be one such tool, he said. But the alliance of Microsoft and IBM, two of the biggest players in the nascent field of "Web services," has ruffled the feathers of Sun, which is also trying to make a play in the market. Sun was also dismayed earlier this year when Microsoft and IBM helped found a group called the Web Services Interoperability Organization, or WSI, which Sun says it was not asked to join as a founding member. Sun, Santa Clara, Calif., is trying to develop Web-authentication technology through a separate group called the Liberty Alliance Project, which counts about 40 large corporations as members and expects to release its first technical specification this summer. The WSI has about 120 members, according to Microsoft. Microsoft confirms it didn't ask Sun to be a founding member of its group, but Microsoft official Neil Charney says Microsoft "has been very clear that we welcome Sun's participation in the organization." Sun was also upset last month when parts of an e-mail from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates about Web services were made public during Microsoft's antitrust trial. The e-mail appeared to quote Mr. Gates as saying that he didn't want Sun to be an influential or founding member of the WSI. That makes Sun officials such as Rich Green, a vice president and general manager, suspicious that IBM and Microsoft will use products such as TrustBridge to control Web services -- and make money off them -- to the exclusion of competitors. "We are concerned about the manner in which this business is being conducted," Mr. Green said. Microsoft's Mr. Charney said he couldn't comment on Mr. Gates's e-mail, but said the WSI was creating open Internet standards that would work with those of other companies. Mr. Sohn said TrustBridge, for instance, would be able to talk to non-Microsoft computers, as long as they were running a special security technology called Kerberos. (END) DOW JONES NEWS 06-06-02 12:00 AM