Infopirate.org

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.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10092618-56.html 

Sun Microsystems is cutting 200 workers in the U.S. and Canada, including nine employees at offices in Bellevue. The layoffs were disclosed in a filing with the state of Washington, listing an effective date of mid-January.

The cuts are part of a plan by the Santa Clara, Calif.-based software maker to reduce operating expenses, with the Associated Press reporting last month that Sun's business is under "extreme pressure" due to the credit crunch and competition from IBM. Revenue is shrinking and losses are piling up.

http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/Sun_cutting_200_w... 

The group, which includes IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Oracle and Red Hat, said its complaints made last year are yet to be addressed just days before Vista is due for release.

The European Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft used its dominance to muscle out RealNetworks and other makers of audio and video streaming software and that it made its desktop Windows deliberately incompatible with rivals' server software.