So says Sun. And after The Register story broke.
MY four questions:
Why a guy with a almost a decade investment in advocating Java AND offered a higest software possition is leaving a company for a startup, the very same day MS deal was announced?
Why a guy that announced "weeks ago" he is leaving company is left to finish a 2B$ deal?
Why after all the damage that news has made, a guy still hasn't said a word about his departure?
And why the that same guy, so much involved in talks, and so determined to leave, 2 days before a deal, uses "we" all over the place when talking about Sun left "door still open to opensource Java", citing compatibility-brand-license problems, while a new software chief John Loiacono, sitting next to him, oposes with less-optimistic viewpoint, noting previous Sun pronouncements that Sun would make Java open-source as soon as IBM opens up its products such as WebSphere.
Sun and MS are certainly not teaming up in any way shape or form - this is more a result of that the current situation was overly negative for both companies.
It seems that they are teaming up on a few points. Identity managment comes to mind. And DRM is next thing that Shwartz mentions today. And IP protection "bussines" was mentioned in every other sentence. It still rings in my ears that Ballmer said something in line of "we have two best platforms for development today, with all other guys nowhere in sight". Which is true, but I would very much like them to continue to compete.
Sun does have some work to do to reassure their friends who wanted to stay as far as they can from MS, that Sun and Java are stil a best choice. I'm happy to see that that kind of annoucements are all over the place today, but actually, only time will tell.
On the bright side, Sun is still doing some Java:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/04/06/HNjava16_1.htmland it seems that "isolates" are back! However, timing mentioned for 1.6 seems pretty unrealistic (beta scheduled for 2004 fall?! release for 2005? Wasn't there 1.5.1 release planned?)