Executive: iPlanet Will Become Division Of Sun Next March

IPlanet, currently operating as an alliance between Sun Microsystems and AOL Time Warner, will formally become a division of Sun on March 17, 2002, says a Sun executive.

Marge Breya, vice president of Sun Open Net Environment (ONE) at Sun, says Sun and AOL Time Warner will continue to have a strategic alliance once iPlanet becomes a Sun division. The terms are yet to be determined, she says.

"We've always said, over the last couple of years, that we plan to extend the alliance, and the companies are investigating what areas we will be in [together]," says Breya.

Sun has always owned the iPlanet brand, and Breya says that when Sun and AOL formed their alliance in March 1999, the two companies acted with the expectation that Sun would drive the product strategy and eventually employ all members of the iPlanet alliance.

"Actually, Sun owned the iPlanet brand when we bought the company iPlanet three or four years ago," says Breya. "We, if you will, put the brand on the alliance with both companies knowing that naturally the products offered as part of the alliance would turn into a division of Sun Microsystems."

By March 17, 2002--the three-year anniversary of the formation of the Sun-AOL alliance--all employees of iPlanet will actually be Sun employees, says Breya.

Last week, AOL laid off 500 iPlanet employees as part of a broader cost-cutting measure. Sun immediately opened up 300 of those positions. Altogether, the company plans to open more than 400 new positions, says Breya. It will transfer employees gradually until March, when all remaining AOL employees at iPlanet will become Sun employees, Breya says.

Also at that time, the iPlanet software line, an integral part of the Sun ONE plan for helping solution providers deliver Web services, should be viewed as a Sun brand much like Solaris.

"I would ask that you think of iPlanet in the same way that you think of Solaris--as a product brand of Sun," says Breya.

Currently, both AOL and Sun own iPlanet's intellectual property. Once iPlanet becomes a division of Sun, Breya anticipates that AOL's stake in that intellectual property may change. Again, the details of the transfer are unclear, she says.

IPlanet has suffered an identity crisis virtually since its inception, industry watchers say. Many felt it would be logical for Sun to take over the company completely, since Sun, more than AOL, has been directing iPlanet's product strategy.

Sun's formal announcement of its intention to take over iPlanet should serve to alleviate confusion among partners and customers, Breya says.

"We're taking this opportunity to talk about what the companies have always known for the last couple of years," she says. "Customers and employees wanted some clarity in that as well. [Now they] know that Sun is taking this forward, and [iPlanet] is clearly spot center in the middle of [its future] strategy."

Tweet

   

More Channel Programs