Sun + Google = TL 4 evar?

So a friend of mine waxed poetically about how the Sun/Google alliance was going to usher in a new age, replete with rocket cars and busty robot housekeepers.

Interesting news, except:

1) Sun's software universally sucks. It's one of the reasons why the industry has shifted to use Linux instead of Solaris, even though Sun is now giving Solaris away for free. Open Office is already free (www.openoffice.org), so I'm hard-pressed to understand why magically stamping the Google name on it is going to turn it into a Microsoft killer.

2) OpenOffice isn't what people want. People already have Microsoft Office (you have to go out of your way these days to buy a PC that doesn't already have the basic Office apps built in). What people want is a browser-based (AJAX) suite of apps with data stored somewhere in the bowels of Google's server farm on the dark side of the Moon. OpenOffice ain't that, and it isn't even something that can be evolved into that. It's just another downloadable application suite, but this time written by someone other than Microsoft - it's great if you aren't running a Microsoft OS on your desktop machine, but those people are few and far between.

At some point Google will provide the apps you want in a browser, but for now the OpenOffice stuff is not going to make you give up your trusty MSFT Office apps. If you want to see an example of a *real* Microsoft killer, check out Zimbra (Outlook in a browser) - I guarantee you that Microsoft isn't losing any sleep over OpenOffice, but they should definitely be losing sleep over apps like Zimbra.

I'm really hard pressed to understand why Google is teaming with Sun anyway, other than the fact that the Google CEO (Eric Schmidt) used to be the head of Sun. The fact is that server hardware/OS software has become a commodity market. You can build a Linux/x86-based server that runs just as fast and reliably (if not more so) than Sun's offerings, for a fraction of the price. As a result, Sun's days as a force in this industry are over, and they are pretty much just coasting on inertia now (it takes a long time for a big company to die).

And having worked with their crappy OS, I'm not going to cry any tears for them.