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January 8, 2009 10:42 AM PST

Sun gets its marketing right with 'Open Web'

by Matt Asay

I just received an e-mail from Sun Microsystems' marketing department, and I really like the message:

Very clear, and something Sun is particularly well-suited to deliver. The question for me is, what comes next? Right now its message mostly centers around MySQL, and that's great. But there's more to building out a Web presence than the database.

Sure, Sun is building out its cloud strategy, adding Q-layer to its arsenal Wednesday, but the "Open Web" idea is both bigger and smaller than cloud computing.

Would a Zend acquisition make sense, to bring in strong PHP expertise to complement Sun's Java solutions? Or would it make sense to buy a company like SpringSource to bridge the gap between Java-based applications for the enterprise and the Web?

I'm not sure, but I think that Sun's message should resonate well. How it rounds out the message over time is perhaps less important than making sure it gets it right in the beginning. For me, "Open Web" is a great start.

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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