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Sun gets Precise technology

Sun Microsystems has acquired the Israeli company's server software technology, along with most of the employees who created it.

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Sun Microsystems has acquired an Israeli company's server software technology, along with most of the employees who created it.

As a part of a technology licensing deal signed earlier this month, 15 of the 25 employees at Precise Connectivity will become Sun employees, said Ben Reich, who will lead the group going to Sun.

The technology Sun licensed runs as an intermediate layer between computers requesting information and a server that houses that information, Reich said in an interview today.

Specifically, the Precise Connectivity's products connect data and programs on a company mainframe to the application servers used to deliver customized Web pages to clients requesting information, he said. The software can connect application servers to a variety of systems, including IBM's AS/400 servers, several Unix servers, and servers that use CORBA technology to share information.

Sun executives could not immediately be reached for comment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Precision Connectivity software currently uses the application server from NetDynamics, a company that Sun acquired in 1998. However, Reich said, the Precise Connectivity employees moving to Sun will get the software working on the Netscape Application Server software that Sun gained access to as a result of the America Online deal to acquire Netscape.

The news is interesting in light of the merging of the two overlapping products. A new version of NetDynamics was released March 10, and a new version of the Netscape Application Server is due in May. The two products will be merged into one in early 2000.

According to Anne Thomas of the Seybold Group, it appears that NetDyanmics will be the core of the new product. The chief feature being preserved from Netscape Application Server will be "load balancing" software that keeps the workload evenly distributed.

Precise Connectivity is based near Tel Aviv, but has employees in Europe and the United States. It is part of a larger 150-person company called Edframo, Reich said.