The IT industry is eagerly awaiting a joint Sun/Google
press conference in the US today, with speculation pointing to a
software alliance or a deal to roll out Google WiFi services using
Sun hardware to support the networks.
A software alliance could see Google agree to distribute Sun’s
Star Office collaboration suite over the web or the open-source
OpenOffice.org version of the software, which Sun heavily
backs.
Both versions of the collaboration suite contain applications
similar to those in Microsoft Office. The recently launched and
cheaper Star Office 8 is aimed squarely at the Office package.
Such a software deal could see Google rebrand the software as
its own offering to millions of search-engine users.
There is also speculation that the conference could be connected
to Google’s fledgling “Google WiFi” wireless hotspot service, with
Google needing a large amount of server hardware to run it.
The conference will be held in California, at 10.30am local
time.