Sun settles with Microsoft. Get over it.

John Delaney, Principal Analyst

In one of the most famous political cartoons ever, David Low commented on the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact with a picture of Hitler and Stalin raising their hats to each other in courteous greeting. Says Hitler to Stalin: "The scum of the Earth, I believe?" Stalin replies: "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?"

The IT press and the developer blog sites have reacted with similar outraged cynicism to the announcement, at the end of last week, that Sun has agreed to settle its long-running Java IPR suit with Microsoft, to the tune of nearly $2 billion. Steve Ballmer and Scott McNealy sealed the deal in public with a ceremonial exchange of football shirts and big, cheesy grins. Purists cried 'sell-out', and Sun's VP of Developer Platforms Rich Green immediately quit 'in disgust', according to The Register.

Meanwhile, Software VP Jonathan Schwartz - whose star clearly remains very much in the ascendant at Sun - is now President and COO. An early test of COO Schwartz's performance will be to see how effectively he can establish a pro-Linux marketing spin on the Microsoft deal. It might go like this, for example: Linux on the desktop, interoperating with Windows client/Office; Solaris on the server, interoperating with the Windows client and servers ('you can go with Linux on the server from Sun, although Solaris offers better interoperability'.)

Question one: has Sun sold out? Literally, yes, it has done exactly that. But that's a good thing, not a bad thing: businesses are supposed to make money by selling things! We could certainly criticise Sun if it had cut a bad deal. This deal looks pretty good to us. Java is one of Sun's key assets, but although Sun's Java business model has been successful in promoting uptake, it also makes it difficult for Sun to make money directly from the technology. Well, this deal got around that problem for a little while anyway: Java just made Sun $2 billion.

Question two: is Scott McNealy a hypocrite? After years of public Microsoft-baiting, the open-source champion beams at Steve Ballmer as he lauds the 'exceptional interoperability' the new deal will enable. Maybe McNealy is a hypocrite, or maybe he's adjusting his PR to fit reality. And really, does it matter either way? This is the IT industry, not a soap opera. McNealy needs to do what is best for the company he leads. He's been criticised in the past for putting his personal feelings before the interests of Sun Microsystems. Seems to us that it's the same people, now criticising him for doing exactly the opposite, who are the real hypocrites. And McNealy remains consistent at least in so far as he still appears to care most about selling servers with Solaris running on them.

This is business. The purists need to get over it.

John Delaney is Principal Analyst at Ovum. He can be contacted directly on jpd@ovum.com.