Sun gets second Microsoft patent payment
Companies also are expected to soon release more details on their collaborative efforts. What's it like to negotiate with Bill Gates?
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Microsoft paid $54 million to extend a patent sharing agreement by one year, the server maker said on Thursday while reporting quarterly financial results. The payment was the first installment of a
In a dramatic turnaround, Sun and Microsoft announced the patent agreement a year ago, and also settled a long-running lawsuit over Sun's Java software. The companies also agreed to cooperate on making their products work better together.
So far, however, that collaboration hasn't had many externally visible results. On Thursday, Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy said a public update on the cooperation is in the works.
"We're planning on more updates in mid-May between the two companies," McNealy said in a conference call.
Sun has been silent about particulars of the collaboration beyond "identity" issues--easing headaches for people logging on to computer networks or administering groups of computer users--and sharing file formats for desktop software such as word processors.
But several new areas came to light last week in the blog of
The next priorities are "issues around systems management, virtualization and developer productivity for Web services," he wrote. Collaboration in Web services--technologies designed for next-generation business computing on the Internet--includes work on standards called WS-Addressing, WS-Management, WS-Eventing, WS-MetadataExchange.
"We are now to the stage of publicly committing products around these agreements," Papadopoulous wrote.
Working with Gates is "extraordinary," Papadopoulos added. "He's got two sides of his personality: a smart, genuine and very approachable geek and a hard-edged business guy. I truly enjoy our interactions when we are in geek mode. There is broad common ground on where things are going, what are problems with getting there, and why we need a relentless focus upon innovation. And let's just say I feel differently when his biz-mode kicks in."