Sun Microsystems plans to bundle its iPlanet Application Server
with its flagship Solaris operating system, which could bring the
company into conflict with at least one of its industry partners.
Sun has released an update to Solaris that included a development
version of the application server, to strengthen ties between the
two products. The company plans to increase the level of
integration significantly next year, by bundling a full version of
iPlanet with Solaris.
Sun officials said the company is debating whether to charge a fee
for the bundled product.
Application servers are a type of middleware that sit between a
database and an end-user, providing a platform on which to deploy a
broad range of business applications, such as e-commerce and
enterprise resource.
If Sun bundles the application server with its widely used
operating system it could help the company gain market share in a
fiercely competitive market. The applications server market is led
by BEA Systems, followed by IBM and then Sun, according to recent
figures from IDC.
The move could spark conflict between Sun and BEA. As well as being
competitors, the two are also close partners, with BEA's
application server being most widely deployed on Sun servers.
A BEA spokesman said the company would continue to work closely
with Sun, but argued that bundling the iPlanet Application Server
with Solaris free of charge would be a mistake.
"What's in it for Sun?" said John Kiger, BEA's director of product
marketing. "There would be no additional revenue and a lot of
additional costs."
Application servers are complex and require significant development
costs, Kiger added. He argued that it would it be difficult for a
company to maintain its application server without generating
revenue to support its development, which in the long term could
hurt Sun's customers.
Sun officials declined to comment on whether the company was
planning to include the application server in an update to Solaris
8 or with Solaris 9 when it is released in the middle of next
year.
For Solaris users, the tighter integration would make it easier to
install and manage Sun's application server with its operating
system, said Anil Gadre, vice-president and general manager for
Solaris.
Sun should benefit by leveraging the popularity of Solaris to boost
the number of users for the iPlanet server, he added.
The company has positioned the software from iPlanet E-Commerce
Solutions - formed through an alliance with AOL Time Warner - as a
key element in its Sun Open Net Environment (ONE) initiative, which
aims to provide businesses with hardware and software for
developing Web services.
At a Sun software conference in San Francisco this week, president
and chief operating officer Ed Zander said the company planned to
take control of iPlanet's products, partly so that they could be
integrated more tightly with Sun's offerings.
Further information
Sun:
www.sun.com
BEA Systems:
www.bea.com