Google and Sun joining forces
Firms to forge partnership that will offer alternative to Microsoft products.
Internet search giant Google and network computing company Sun Microsystems have entered into a multi-year agreement to distribute Sun's software technologies, a move some say is meant to offer users an alternative to Microsoft products.
Both Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Sun CEO Scott McNealy kept mum on the specifics of the partnership, apart from announcing a deal to distribute the popular Google toolbar, which allows users to search both the Web and their desktops through Sun's Java Runtime Environment, a software package that needs to be installed on a machine in order to run Java technology-based applications. As part of the deal, users who download the JRE software package will have the option of downloading the Google Toolbar.