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

To: QwikSand who wrote (12595)	12/13/1998 9:24:00 PM
From: QwikSand	Respond to of 64865

interactive.wsj.com December 13,1998 Oracle, Sun to Announce Software Licensing Deal An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup Oracle Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. are licensing major parts of each other's software, opening another line of attack in their continuing battle with Microsoft Corp. The two Microsoft rivals are billing their arrangement as a "significant agreement" to be presented by Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison and Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy. The two companies already are strong partners. Many of Sun's servers run Oracle's database and business programs. Sun's computers come with Solaris, a version of the Unix operating system that Sun is trying to popularize on other companies' servers. Mr. Ellison has indicated in recent months his desire to develop database software that runs on small, micro-sized operating systems, bypassing the need for more broadly featured operating systems from software makers such as Microsoft. Database programs now typically run on top of operating systems, such as Microsoft's Windows NT or Unix. But databases, Mr. Ellison argues, can run faster and more reliably by dumping that general-purpose operating software for a much smaller chunk of code, called a microkernel, to manage a computer's basic processes. Last month Mr. Ellison predicted database appliances would be ready by next year's first quarter. "We think it's going to be a very attractively priced box," he said. "We aren't going into the system business. We just don't think one is necessary." The simplified approach isn't useful, Mr. Ellison conceded, when applications software is running on the same machine with a database, a common use of Oracle's software. For that purpose, programmers need more of the services of a general-purpose operating system such as Windows NT, he said. If they don't, dropping NT brings added reliability, he contended. "Windows NT breaks a lot," he said.