Sun, AOL to cooperate on IM and portal projects

by Ashlee Vance

October 24, 2001 —

Sun Microsystems Inc. and AOL Time Warner Inc. are expected to announce that they will work together on several Internet-based software projects in the near future, Sun executives said Tuesday.

Sun released a variety of software tools designed to bolster the company's Sun ONE (Open Net Environment) Web services architecture at a Tuesday event held in Santa Clara, California. In addition to showcasing its own wares, Sun's President and Chief Operating Officer Ed Zander made brief reference to a union with AOL Time Warner on various software initiatives.

While Zander was tight-lipped about the deal, Mark Tolliver, executive vice president at Sun, said the deal would revolve around instant messaging (IM) products, enterprise portal development and other undisclosed applications.

Sun is trying to make headway in the IM space, adding IM capabilities to its iPlanet Portal Server this week. While Sun has geared its IM platform toward corporate users, Time Warner AOL has enjoyed wide success with its messaging tools in the consumer market. The two companies are looking to make their IM platforms interoperable in the future as part of the collaboration, Tolliver said.

In addition, both companies will work on developing portals designed with the right look and feel to attract corporate customers. The portals would include features that let users work on their e-mail and calendar offline. Users would then synchronize their data when connected later to the Internet.

The "Enterprise Portals" would also have large LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directories, Tolliver said. LDAP is a software protocol that helps users find companies, other users, and resources such as files on a network.

Sun and AOL Time Warner have worked closely together in the past, sharing ownership of software maker iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions. Sun, however, will take complete ownership of iPlanet in the near future.

Sun, based in Palo Alto, California can be reached at +1-650-960-1300 or online at http://www.sun.com.

IDG News Service