Blog: David Loshin

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Here Comes the Sun

I just composed what I thought was a clever little entry on the Sun-Google announcement when my thick fingers inadvertently dumped me into a different web page, whereupon all of my cleverness evaporated into thin air. However, the general theme of the note was this:

Despite the apparent pre-announcement buzz expecting a major declaration on behalf of the two companies, apparently some folks seemed to be less than overwhelmed.

Perhaps the disappointment stems from the never-ending hopes of the Microsoft haters that Google will ride in on its white horse and freely distribute software that will eliminate the dependence of desktop jockeys on Microsoft's suites.

However, the surprise at the lack of apparent depth of the announcement that Google will distribute Sun software while Sun will promote Google's toolbar reflects a tactical, short-term view of the future of computing. The fact is that it is natural for these two companies to be playing together in the same sandbox. To me, the partnership is indicative of potentially greater value down the road, as both organizations represent the history of network computing (remember "The Network is the Computer"?).

Give the relationship a chance to grow, and I hope that we will start to see the kinds of innovations that we should expect from this kind of arrangement.

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