October 3rd, 2005
Google-Sun mash-up planned
Tomorrow, Sun CEO Scott McNealy and Google CEO Eric Schmidt are holding a press conference to discuss a "collaboration effort." Given that Dr. Schmidt was at Sun from 1983 to 1997 and defined Sun’s Internet strategy (according to his bio on Google’s corporate Web site), it’s not totally surprising that the two companies would figure out mutually beneficial ways to collaborate. And, Sun has been busy over the last year building bridges, including with Microsoft, although a Sun-Google accord would fall into the "disruptive to Microsoft" category. Google does big distributed infrastructure, and Sun knows something about that topic. Java, which was developed under Schmidt’s watch as Sun’s CTO, powers platform-neutral applications, and Google is busy becoming more of an applications company. There will be plenty more speculation today. Stay tuned…
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
