Reporters caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Moscow to get his take on Oracle's deal to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion.
But apparently Ballmer, who is rarely at a loss for words, didn't exactly have a sound byte at the ready.
"I need to think about it," Ballmer told reporters in Moscow, according to Reuters. "I am very surprised."
I'm hearing that Ballmer wasn't the only one surprised by Monday's deal. According to a source of mine, IBM hadn't given up on purchasing Sun and was blindsided by Oracle's move.
Oracle is, of course, one of Microsoft's chief rivals in the database and business applications space--a fact that Ballmer highlighted in an interview in February. Sun is also a longtime rival, although the two companies have had a technology partnership in recent years stemming from their settlement of legal hostilities back in 2004.
I imagine we'll hear far more from Ballmer and Microsoft in the coming days and weeks.
Marc Tremblay
(Credit: Sun Microsystems)Well, I have a little more information on what Marc Tremblay will be doing once he starts at Microsoft.
In addition to assuming the title "distinguished engineer," Tremblay will be part of a "Strategic Software/Silicon Architectures group." The unit is headed by KD Hallman and is part of the research and strategy organization headed by Craig Mundie.
"Marc will help oversee cross-company technical task forces and strategic direction for the company's software and semiconductor technologies," Microsoft said in a statement.
From what I could glean, the SiArch group, as it is dubbed internally, is responsible for Microsoft's long-term strategy as it relates to chip technologies and handles Redmond's relationships with chip companies.
Tremblay is leaving Sun after 18 years after helping architect its Sparc line of chips and serving as CTO of its microelectronics unit.
His new boss at Microsoft, Hallman, has been at the company since 1994. Prior to her new role, she headed up the Visual Studio unit and before that was part of the natural language group that produced the grammar and spell checker used in Office and Windows. Before joining Microsoft, Hallman worked for Digital Equipment.
Taking a break from hiring people at Yahoo, Microsoft has scooped up a top chip executive from Sun Microsystems.
Marc Tremblay
(Credit: Sun Microsystems)Marc Tremblay, a Sun fellow and chief technology officer for its chip unit, is joining Microsoft as a "distinguished engineer," Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday. Tremblay, an 18-year Sun veteran, was one of the main architects for Sun's Sparc line of chips. I'm working on getting more details on what Tremblay will be doing in his new role at Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Sun said Tremblay's role would be filled by Rick Hetherington, who has served as co-CTO for microelectronics with Tremblay.
"We thank Marc for his many contributions over the last 18 years and wish him all the best in his future endeavors," Sun said in a statement.
Hetherington, a former digital equipment engineer, has been with Sun for more than a decade, the past two as co-CTO of the chip unit.
Microsoft's hiring of Tremblay was noted earlier by The New York Times.
In addition to Tremblay, the software maker has also made another high-profile hire. As reported by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, Microkernel expert Jonathan Shapiro said on a mailing list on Friday that he is also joining Microsoft to work on the company's secretive Midori project. Shapiro said he expects to join Microsoft in August; the company declined to comment.
The European Union's new complaint against Microsoft really takes one back. Like, a decade or so.
Its objection--that bundling a browser into the operating system violates antitrust law--is the same one that U.S. regulators raised in 1996.
The newest allegations stem from a 2007 complaint by Norway's Opera that Microsoft was hurting competition by including Internet Explorer in Windows and by not better adhering to Web standards.
What is most odd about the EU taking up the issue is its timing. The EU spent years going after Microsoft on antitrust matters related specifically to its bundling of products with Windows and didn't focus on the browser. Plus, the move comes as Microsoft's browser share is at its lowest point since the Netscape days.
Firefox is particularly strong in Europe, the area over which the EU has oversight. According to XitiMonitor, IE had a 59.5 percent share in Europe as of November, compared with 31.1 percent for Firefox. Opera had about 5 percent, and Safari half of that. Microsoft lost a full 5 percentage points of market share since April alone.
That doesn't mean that Microsoft will have an easy time in Brussels. As it has shown in the past, the EU is willing to take a tough line with Microsoft, and it is not averse to fining the company and issuing harsh decrees.
David Anderson, an antitrust attorney and partner with Berwin Leighton Paisner in Brussels, said that Microsoft may well face a challenge ahead in persuading the Commission to set aside its preliminary assessment, saying the commission tends to review matters thoroughly before issuing such "statements of objections."
Further he noted that the commission staff may feel emboldened after having won its previous case against Microsoft. It also has the same set of attorneys that worked on that case pursuing the IE issue, Anderson said.
Microsoft is choosing its words carefully at this point, electing not to go beyond a statement that is more procedural than confrontational. But I can only imagine the words being used behind closed doors in Redmond.
In defending itself, Microsoft will find itself against one particularly familiar foe. Opera's chairman, William Raduchel, is a longtime Microsoft critic, dating back to his time at Sun Microsystems, which brought antitrust actions of its own against Microsoft before eventually settling.
For those who need a refresher course in the browser wars, Netscape had the dominant program in the Web's early days, controlling more than half the market as late as 1997. By 1999, though, Microsoft's IE had more than three-fourths of the market.
It has held the dominant position ever since, accounting for greater than 90 percent of the market through 2004, when Firefox began to make serious inroads. Its share has been on the decline since, according to Net Applications.
Microsoft's browser had an 87 percent share in 2005, but by 2007, its share had dropped to 79 percent. Last year alone, IE's market share dropped from 75 percent in January to 68 percent by December.
CNET News' Dawn Kawamoto contributed to this report.
Usually when I get news about Sun Microsystems and Microsoft working together, it is some highly technical enterprise collaboration stemming from their lawsuit settlement a few years back.
On Monday, though, the companies announced something in the consumer arena. Sun will start distributing the MSN toolbar to Internet Explorer users when they download Sun's Java Runtime Environment.
The companies said that Sun's Java runtime is downloaded tens of millions of times per month.
"This agreement with Sun Microsystems is another important milestone in our strategy to secure broad-scale distribution for our search offering, enabling millions more people to experience the benefits of Live Search," Microsoft senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi said in a statement. "With the vast array of Java software-based Web applications that are downloaded every month, this deal will expose Live Search to millions more Internet users and drive increased volume for our search advertisers."
On its own, the news won't change the shape of the Internet. However, it does represent some shifting allegiances for Sun, which had been allied with Microsoft's rivals.
Until just recently, those downloading the Google Pack of desktop software received Sun's StarOffice, though that has apparently reached an end. As part of a 2005 deal, Sun was also to distribute Google's toolbar. Sun also has distributed Yahoo's toolbar.
- prev
- 1
- next
