Silicon.com: The Bloor Perspective: The end of the anti-Microsoft alliance…

“Not long ago, the Sion alliance of Sun-IBM-Oracle-Netscape
could be relied on to back any decent idea that could compete with
Microsoft’s technology. That’s now looking like a fading
memory. It was never a formal alliance, and market changes
have affected all four companies. The latest crack has been caused
by the increasingly tough competition between Sun and IBM in the
Web server market as these two vie for the dot-com crown. And
Oracle hasn’t exactly been helping things with its attacks on IBM’s
new friend Siebel.”

“Netscape also has taken a back seat following the hammering its
browser has taken from Microsoft and the way its corporate profile
has been lowered by the AOL takeover. Perhaps, though, the
biggest factor in the decline of the Sion alliance has been the
lessening of the threat from Microsoft.”

“Sun’s mishandling of the standards issue has been a problem,
while lack of uptake on the client side has lessened Netscape’s
interest. Neither IBM nor Oracle has signed up to the latest J2EE
standards and now everyone seems more interested in the
strategic implications of Linux.”

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