Google’s Non-Announcement
Stu was right : “Am I missing something, or is this the worst hyped announcement ever?” - So it seems. We’ll see what the future will bring. I don’t know that much about it to have a serious opinion, except that bundling is evil, and that I’m no toolbar fan at all. I’ll turn to some of the sources I trust to check out ‘the general opinion of guys that do know’ :
“Much of the speculation was that they’d announce some type of collaboration on Sun’s OpenOffice productivity suite — speculation strong enough to be cited as causing Microsoft’s share price to drop.
The announcement came out this morning, and it conjures up memories of the dot-com days in its pointlessness: Sun will give users the opportunity to download the Google toolbar when they download the Sun Java virtual machine. That’s it, apart from more bubble-days rhetoric saying “the companies have agreed to explore opportunities to promote and enhance Sun technologies” like OpenOffice.”
More on [TechDirt]
Over at the [Google Press Center] this is what you can find :
“MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - October 4, 2005 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Google Inc. today announced an agreement to promote and distribute their software technologies to millions of users around the world. The agreement aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain Sun’s Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, helping millions of users worldwide to participate in the next wave of Internet growth. ”
[…] “As a leader in free and open source software, Sun has long recognized that network innovation is vital to the evolution of the global economy,” said Scott McNealy, chief executive officer, Sun Microsystems. “Working with Google will make our technologies available more broadly, increase options for users, lower barriers and expand participation worldwide. Free and open source technologies, such as OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and Java, have never been safer or offered more choices.”
“Google and Java are two of the most widely recognized technology brands because they provide users with online tools that enhance their lives on a day to day basis. The Google Toolbar offers useful Internet search services while Java enables richer interactive content. We look forward to exploring other related areas of collaboration,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google.”
So that’s about it.
“This seems like a ploy by Sun to try and gain some attention and good press by latching on to Google, when there’s not a lot of underlying substance” - dixit Carlo on [TechDirt]
NOTE from [SearchEngineWatch] : “You can already register by email and be notified when the Google Toolbar for the Java Desktop will be available. From the looks of it, the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer (kind of ironic) will be the version distributed by Sun. Sorry Firefox fans (at least for now). ”
SEW has gathered some of the press coverage too. [Read]
What’s the big deal? Google and Sun work together. Officially. Microsoft is the target.
Comment by Dimitar Vesselinov | October 4, 2005
Poor Google got milked for all its worth by Sun bastards.
Comment by Anon | October 4, 2005
Simple as that. sun took google for a ride.
Comment by Dan | October 4, 2005