The measures result from the broad 10-year technical collaboration agreement, announced in April 2004, that set the framework for increased cooperation between the companies to enable their products to work better together.
"Over the past year we have worked to establish great communication at all levels between our companies, from regular executive meetings to in-depth working sessions with our engineers," said Ballmer. "In the first year, we've moved from the courtroom to the computer lab. Now we're moving from the lab to the market."
"Sun and Microsoft are working together ... and quite well at that," said McNealy. "A year ago, the skeptics doubted that we could agree on the shape of the table, much less collaborate on solving some of the industry's toughest problems. Surprise - we did just that and today we've taken a huge step forward. Single sign-on experience between the Solaris-based Operating System, Sun Java Enterprise System and Microsoft Windows Server has been customers' top request. This is just the beginning of a long list of projects we're working on."
Web Single Sign-On (SSO)
The companies have jointly developed and published two draft specifications: Web Single Sign-On Metadata Exchange (Web SSO MEX) Protocol and Web Single Sign-On Interoperability Profile (Web SSO Interop Profile).
These new specifications enable browser-based Web SSO between security domains that use Liberty ID-FF and WS-Federation. Products that support the Web SSO MEX Protocol and the Web SSO Interop Profile will enable companies to provide users with an improved Web SSO experience from their Web browsers.
Microsoft and Sun plan to support the new specifications within their product portfolios, including Microsoft Windows Server and Sun Java Enterprise System.
Microsoft and Sun welcome participation in the further development of these draft specifications through the Web services protocol workshop process, and ultimately will submit them to a standards organization for finalization and ratification as industry standards. Drafts of the new specifications are available on Microsoft's Web site and Sun's Web site for anyone to review and comment on.
"The integration of the products of these two companies is critical to General Motors," said Fred Killeen, director of Systems Development and chief technology officer for General Motors Information Systems & Services. "The reduction in integration cost and operational complexity will be a key enabler in implementing identity management initiatives for GM and for the industry as a whole."
"Finding ways to improve interoperability and reduce overlap between the Liberty Alliance specifications and the WS-* Web services architecture is a primary goal of the Liberty Alliance," said Michael Barrett, vice president, Security Strategy for American Express Co., and president of the Liberty Alliance from 2002 to 2004.
WS-Management Specification
Microsoft and Sun are collaborating on systems management to enable deep interoperability between their operating systems and management products. As part of this effort, the companies are collaborating on the development of the WS-Management a Web services specification, co-authored by Microsoft, Intel, Sun and other vendors, that defines a single protocol to meet management requirements spanning hardware devices, operating systems and applications. Sun will implement WS-Management in the Solaris 10 Operating System, management service processors in its x64-based Sun Fire servers and the Sun N1 management software tools, to provide full systems management interoperability across Solaris and Windows environments. In addition, Sun has created an implementation of WS-Management in Java programming language that it plans to release to the open source community at http://www.java.net. WS-Management also is a key component of the Microsoft Dynamic Systems Initiative and will ship as a standard part of Windows Server 2003 starting with R2.
Windows on Sun
Microsoft and Sun are addressing needs in the field of 64-bit computing. The Sun Fire x64 server for x64 systems and Sun Java Workstation product lines carry the Designed for Windows logo, have passed Microsoft's stringent compatibility testing suite and are listed in the Windows Catalogs. Sun and Microsoft also have signed an agreement providing Sun back-line support for Windows on Sun systems.
Systems Integrators
Leading system integration companies including Accenture, EDS and NEC Corp. also support the Sun and Microsoft relationship and are providing interoperability between Sun and Microsoft products for their customers.
