Sun Microsystems and Microsoft will provide more details
next month on work they are doing to make their products
interoperable.
The announcement will focus on their work regarding
interoperability in the web services and directory services area,
said Mark McClain, vice-president of software marketing at Sun.
An October announcement means a slight delay for details on the
interoperability work. Sun chief executive officer Scott McNealy
said in late June at the company's JavaOne conference that Sun and
Microsoft would detail their initial collaborative work during the
US summer, which ends in September.
"We're going to miss that summer target," a Sun spokeswoman
acknowledged. "As happens when large organisations are working
together, things take a bit longer."
When the announcement is made, however, Sun and Microsoft will
have a demonstration of interoperability between their
technologies, the spokeswoman said.
"We want to make sure that it is a solid announcement and that
we can show our customers how we can work together. The goal is to
have an event and to demonstrate interoperability in some
capacity."
The spokeswoman could not specify what would be demonstrated but
said it would most likely be in the areas of directory services and
single-sign-on technology.
Sun and Microsoft started work on interoperability as part of a
broad settlement and cooperation agreement between the companies
that was announced in April. Executives from Sun and Microsoft have
repeatedly said that users are clamoring for interoperability
between Sun's Unix and Java environments and Microsoft's Windows
and .net.
As part of the April deal, Microsoft agreed to pay Sun $700m
(£389m) to resolve all pending antitrust issues and $900m to
resolve all patent issues. The settlement ended a bitter legal
dispute between the rivals that started in 1997.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service