Sun says Yahoo for portal software

Sun Microsystems, which makes software for building corporate portal Web sites, will soon make Yahoo's content available to Sun business customers.

The company on Monday will announce plans to build Yahoo technology into its portal-server software, which allows businesses to create portals for their employees, customers and business partners. Such portals give people one view to corporate e-mail and other company information, such as human resources and sales data. Individual employees can personalize their portal pages for their specific needs.

Sun competes against Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, BEA Systems and others in the lucrative market for e-business software--and portal-server software has become a strong seller. Yahoo has been trying to augment its revenue with a big push into the corporate market.

Sun executives said companies can now give employees, customers and partners access to popular Yahoo content, such as news, stock prices and weather information.

The new alliance pairs Yahoo's corporate product--called My Yahoo Enterprise Edition--with the Sun ONE portal server. The server is part of Sun's family of e-business software.

The joint offering will be available in the third quarter, the companies said. Sun customers who want to use the Yahoo services will be offered a free 120-day trial.

Yahoo, meanwhile, also recently struck a deal with SBC Communications to offer a dial-up Internet service that ties the portal's content with the Baby Bell's Web access network.