Oracle, Sun enter into a 10-year initiative

NEW DELHI: In a recently held meeting between Sun Microsystems and database giant Oracle, at the latter's Redwood Shores, Calif., headquarters, the two have announced an expanded partnership with each other.

Sun CEO Scott McNealy and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, share the vision of providing an alternative to Microsoft's .Net architecture by developing a full-featured, Java based data-center architecture made from Sun's Solaris 10 operating system and Oracle's Java-based Fusion middleware, said an online report.

Under the 10-year initiative the two would work hand-in-hand in packaging as well as marketing of each other's products.

Oracle has also endorsed the Java-based NetBeans software, and has selected Solaris 10 for its 64- bit development and deployment platform.

In return, Sun has announced that it would be shipping a free version of Oracle's database software and also provide support for a year.

Asserting strong support for Java, Ellison informed that Oracle's middleware strategy as well as integration approach is built around Java, and the two together will give Microsoft stiff competition.