Netscape and Sun face product overlaps By Emily Fitzloff and Dana Gardner InfoWorld Electric Posted at 4:36 PM PT, Nov 25, 1998 Although the logistics of the agreement between America Online (proud new owner of Netscape Communications) and Sun Microsystems seem to be ironed out, the impact of the deal on those companies' product plans and customers remains to be seen. The core of the three-year development and marketing agreement between AOL and Sun lies in the joint development of software designed to help companies and ISPs engage in Internet commerce. But several other server products from Netscape, including its application server, e-mail server, and directory server, all overlap with product offerings from Sun, leading Netscape customers to wonder what will happen now. Industry analysts and end-users anticipate a bumpy road in the integration of Sun and Netscape's products. "Sun has a lot of work to do to explain the relationship of how they will use [Sun's application server] NetDynamics and [Netscape's application server] Kiva," said Larry Perlstein, principal analyst at Dataquest, in San Jose, Calif. Another potential point of contention pertains to Netscape's commitment to support the Linux operating system -- a Sun Solaris competitor -- in future products. Apparently, no definitive product plans will be delivered until final stages of the acquisition are completed, most likely this spring. "Until the deal goes through, customers maintain current support contracts. As far as product plans, we really need to sit down and map that out. If something is phased out, we will have a very clear migration plan for customers," said Lori Mirek, senior vice president of marketing at Netscape, in Moutain View, Calif. However, one end-user said the companies should have mapped out product plans while they were still sitting at the negotiating table. "I would imagine they'll be getting a lot of phone calls saying, 'Hey, what's going to happen; which of these products will be phased out?' " said one end-user at a government agency based in the Northeast. Sun's application server offering, based on technology it acquired from NetDynamics, is strikingly similar to Netscape's own application server software that it acquired from Kiva. The companies also have competing messaging and directory servers. However, Bill Raduchel, Sun's chief strategy officer, seemed unconcerned. Raduchel acknowledged the redundancy between the Kiva and NetDynamics servers, but said, "We don't see them competing. We're going to integrate this stuff over time." Regarding the companies' mail and messaging solutions, "Netscape's e-mail server has good stuff, and we think we have the industry's best messaging store, and we'll work to combine them," Raduchel said. Still, the core product focus of the deal remains with the companies' I-commerce offerings and how they can best be leveraged in the future. "The overall vision for the three companies is the same: how to be the most successful provider of I-commerce solutions for the 21st century," Mirek said. Sun Microsystems Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif., is at www.sun.com. Emily Fitzloff is an InfoWorld senior writer. InfoWorld Editor at Large Dana Gardner is based in New Hampshire. From MAILER-DAEMON@cs.depaul.edu Mon Nov 30 15:52:20 1998