Sun chief hits back at Microsoft web services slur

Sun Microsystems has hit back at claims by Microsoft that it's not committed to web services and lacks the power to seriously challenge Microsoft's .Net strategy.

Sun's chief technology evangelist Simon Phipps told silicon.com that, on the contrary, Sun's Java-based web services architecture has by far the widest take-up amongst users and developers.

He said: "Microsoft and IBM are very worried by Sun, and the success it's having - that's why they're working so hard to marginalise us, but it's not working.

"To say that Sun, one of the first companies in the world to articulate a web services vision, is not committed to web services, is ridiculous."

Phipps is responding to comments made by Microsoft's global director of .Net business strategy Charles Fitzgerald on silicon.com last week.

Fitzgerald said Sun was "schizophrenic" about web services, had mishandled the development of Java and is unable to stop thinking like a hardware company despite its much-vaunted move towards software.

Phipps said: "Microsoft thinks we've mishandled Java because IBM and BEA are making money out of it. This just shows how big a problem Microsoft has with openness - it doesn't understand the world needs open technology.

"We're happy for IBM and BEA to make money from Java, Microsoft assumes that if it's invented something then it can be the only one to make a profit out of it."

Microsoft is fighting hard with Sun to be the winner in providing the technology web services will be based on. Whilst the idea of web services is to use standards that allow compatibility between different vendors' products, there are still massive differences in the various companies' visions of the future.

Microsoft launched its .Net strategy in the summer of 2000 and can take much of the credit for generating the current interest in the topic.

Sun launched its Sun One (Open Net Environment) strategy the following spring and has been Microsoft's most vocal opponent.

While Microsoft claims to have the most comprehensive strategy, Sun says its more practical approach is better at building on companies' existing IT infrastructure.

In addition, Microsoft's Fitzgerald claimed Java as a whole had been a huge failure and that users and developers were returning to the Microsoft fold for web services.

Phipps angrily denied this. He said: "Forty-two out of the 45 top internet software vendors base their systems on a Java architecture - the only ones that don't are those looking to get bought by Microsoft."

He added Java had been the single most important development in the IT industry over the last decade.

"Charles Fitzgerald obviously has a problem with reality - we're looking at a Soviet-style re-write of history here. Nearly all of the web services work across the world is being done on Java."