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The companies entered a multiyear partnership to help spread and develop each other's software, a deal that includes OpenOffice.org, Java and OpenSolaris from Sun, and Google's Toolbar. The partnership begins with a modest step: Within 30 days, the Google Toolbar will become a standard part of the software people get when they download Java from Sun's Web site.
The software the companies are working on directly competes with Microsoft's. For example, Java provides an alternative programming foundation to Windows and Microsoft's .Net, and OpenOffice competes directly with Microsoft Office. The Google Toolbar, meanwhile, leads to Google's services and not those Microsoft is trying to promote through MSN.
Interestingly, the landmark partnership wasn't the brainchild of top executives. It bubbled up from the rank and file of Sun's software-engineering department. Thorsten Laux, who was part of the StarOffice team Sun acquired in 1999, was promoted to director of Java engineering on the desktop in February. Within a month in his new job, Laux had an idea: Why don't Sun and Google team up to spread each other's Web-based technologies to a larger community?
Laux immediately began talking about the plan to his bosses, who he said were not hard to convince. Laux reached out to his old boss, a former Sun employee who was hired by Google last year. In no time, Google was on board, and within six months, contracts were signed and the deal was done, he said.
However, not everyone is impressed with the partnership. After much brouhaha leading up to the announcement, many bloggers were left scratching their heads at a press event they considered anticlimactic.
Blog entries with titles such as "Big whoop," "That's it?" and "Google and Sun announce yawn" abound on blog search site Technorati. It's clear that many in the blogosphere were looking for a more groundbreaking project to come from the companies.
Wireless cities
Municipal Wi-Fi programs are slowly becoming a reality, but challenges remain--even for Google.
The city of Philadelphia awarded EarthLink a high-profile contract to build a Wi-Fi network stretching over 135 square miles, marking the formal start of the largest municipal effort in the United States to offer wireless Net access.
The Internet service provider won the contract to place Wi-Fi access points on telephone poles throughout the city, beating out a competing proposal from Hewlett-Packard. Most city residents will pay $20 a month for access.
While other municipalities have created local wireless networks, Philadelphia is the largest city to date to formalize such a project. The City of Brotherly Love's plans differ from those of many other municipalities in one crucial way: EarthLink will own the hardware and take the financial risk associated with providing the service. If it flops, city taxpayers won't lose the money.
On the other side of the country, the City by the Bay announced plans to unplug Internet access as well. Google is the celebrity runner in San Francisco's race to become the first U.S. city with affordable or free wireless access to the Internet--but any such deal faces likely lawsuits or legislation, Mayor Gavin Newsom said.
The dissenters, such as phone giants SBC Communications and Verizon Communications and cable company Comcast, have publicly and privately criticized the city's project, calling it "foolhardy," given that low-cost access to the Internet is already widely available to the public in San Francisco.
The city received 26 Wi-Fi proposals from a range of companies, including Internet service provider EarthLink, San Francisco wireless upstart Feeva and cell phone company Cingular. Other notable companies submitting proposals include Ericsson, Motorola, Nortel and SkyTel.
Like in Philadelphia, the project could be privatized, public-private or municipally owned, Newsom said. All proposals under consideration will cost San Francisco taxpayers "little or nothing," he said.
However, consumer privacy is a concern, Newsom said in response to a question at the conference about the possibility that companies providing Wi-Fi access are looking to gather data on the location of users to deliver ads.
That prospect has some people concerned. "They will know much more information about your activities" than they can glean from a stationary PC, said Ira Victor, managing partner at security information firm Data Clone Labs.
"There are still a lot of unanswered questions, the most important being related to privacy," blogger Charles Jade wrote on the Ars Technica Web site. "Will Google be watching users? It's unlikely a city like San Francisco, with a large contingent of professional protesters and unreconstructed communists, would
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Week in review
