Sun goes head-to-head with Microsoft in web services contest

Sun has taken another big step on the road to web services with a raft of initiatives designed to raise the stakes in its battle with Microsoft's .NET.

In a joint announcement with its software subsidiary iPlanet today, Sun updated its Sun ONE (Open Network Environment) initiative and delivered a host of new measures to get developers and third-party software companies to start using the platform.

Sun president and chief operating officer Ed Zander said: "February's launch of Sun ONE was about vision. Today we're talking about products, about reality, about services. I think in five years, Sun ONE will be to us will be what Java is to us now - this is fundamental to what we're doing now."

Sun also unveiled software designed to enable secure instant messaging for business users, and said it will start bundling the iPlanet application server software in with sales of Solaris 8.

The application server is a key part of Sun's web services vision, for use as the basis of web-enabled Java applications.

Sun said it has put together a web services starter kit to give businesses all the tools they need to start building robust web services.

The starter kit will be free to developers for a year and will include directory server software, J2EE, Forte development tools and portal, web and messaging server software.

If companies choose to roll out services based on the software, then they have to pay.

The announcement is undoubtedly a shot across Microsoft's bow, which has been leading the way with its .NET programme.

Simon Holloway, business solutions manager for Sun's north European operations, said the company's support of open standards separated it from Microsoft.

He said: "Everyone else who is doing web services - whether it's us, IBM, Oracle or HP - recognises the reality of living in a heterogeneous computing environment. Microsoft wants to own all of it."