Was this "it"?
Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Google Inc. today announced an agreement to promote and distribute their software technologies to millions of users around the world. The agreement aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, helping millions of users worldwide to participate in the next wave of Internet growth.
Under the agreement, Sun will include the Google Toolbar as an option in its consumer downloads of the Java Runtime Environment on http://java.com. In addition, the companies have agreed to explore opportunities to promote and enhance Sun technologies, like the Java Runtime Environment and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite available at http://www.openoffice.org.
Update (5.10.2005): a general sense of disappointment is prevalent (see, eg, Inside Google), but John Battelle's take is, as ever, illuminating:
The Toolbar, in the end, is how Google pushes out Microsoft. Seems the push is on to get more Toolbars downloaded. And now, I see why Google is doing this Sun deal. It's the Toolbar, of course! From the Cnet coverage:
Details about what exactly that will entail were vague at best, with the only nugget offered being that Sun, in the immediate future, will make Google's toolbar a standard part of the package when users download Sun's Java Runtime Environment from the server seller's Web site.
In other words, Google really, really wants more Toolbar distribution. Watch this space.
Update (6.10.2005): Shel Israel writes,
My good friend Richard Brandt has started a blog on Google. It is altogether fitting that he should because: (1) he's more knowledgeable on that company than anyone I know, and (2) he's writing a book about it.
Richard Brandt's take on Google/Sun?
It’s surprising to me that some people who profess to follow and analyze Google’s actions and strategies still don’t realize how secretive this company is. … Sun, however, is a company with a bigger mouth. Sun President Jonathan Schwartz described just what people wanted to hear in his blog. All of a sudden, just as the deal with Google is being announced, he decides to write an enthusiastic essay on the promise of software as a service and its potential to unseat Microsoft. Even though that’s an idea that Sun has been working on for years. Jonathan also titled his blog The Value in Volume, the most boring headline Sun PR could come up with. But they forgot to tell him to change the url for his blog, which seems to give his original title for the column: entry=the_world_changes_this_week
There’s no question about it. Google is going to, within a year at most (and probably less considering the speed at which Google travels) start offering PC applications like word processing and spreadsheets as a service on its site. … They will announce it when they release it in beta on the Google site.
