Sun Exec: We Continue To Work Closely With BEA

BEA Systems Sun Microsystems

At the BEA eWorld 2002 conference here, Sun Director of Global ISV Alliances Michael Bohlig said Sun and BEA have launched several new initiatives to ensure that BEA's Java-based WebLogic platform continues to be a leading platform deployed on Sun servers running the Solaris Unix operating system.

Those initiatives include joint engineering and performance optimization and alignment between the two companies' developer programs, Bohlig said. BEA launched dev2dev, a new program aimed at building its developer base from 350,000 to 1 million by the end of 2002, at the show Monday.

To further show its support for BEA, Sun is also one of eWorld's main sponsors this year, and James Gosling, Sun's chief scientist, is slated to deliver a keynote address on Wednesday.

Questions about the relationship between the two companies were raised last month when Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy blasted BEA at a Sun international press event on its Santa Clara, Calif., campus. He said then that increased competition from larger vendors such as Sun, IBM and Microsoft in the e-business application platform space would seriously cut into BEA's market share.

"IBM's bundling WebSphere for free on their platform, Microsoft is bundling their app server on their platform, we've got iPlanet, now free and clear, to bundle on Solaris on our platform," he said. "So where [does BEA sell to, the Mac?"

When asked about the comments, BEA founder, President and CEO Alfred Chuang, who worked for Sun for nine years, dismissed them by saying, "Scott is Scott." He added that the Sun sales force does not share its CEO's sentiment.

Bohlig estimated that about 70 percent of BEA WebLogic platforms are deployed on Unix servers. At the show this week, though, BEA solidified a previously reported deal with Intel to optimize the platform for Intel-based servers, which will increase their opportunity to run on non-Unix servers, according to the company.

Bohlig admitted that Sun salespeople are pushing the iPlanet platform over any other but said that does not preclude the use of BEA WebLogic for customers that request BEA's product.

"I guess we balance it out by listening to what the customers want to see as the solution," said Bohlig of the competitive relationship. "But we will still focus on the integrated stack point of view with Sun ONE on the iPlanet tools; we're not trying to hide that."