Sun poised to unveil .Net rival

Sun Microsystems is next month expected to announce details of a range of web-based software aimed squarely Microsoft's .Net strategy.

When it unveils its technologies to analysts at a meeting early February, Sun will be one of the last vendors to detail its web services vision. Following Microsoft's .Net announcement last summer, Oracle jumped into web development services at the end of last year, while IBM claims that it has been delivering similar service components for the past few years.

One of Sun's key components is a software tool kit, code-named Brazil, aimed at simplifying the development of web-enabled applications. Sun's iPlanet division reportedly confirmed that Sun's Brazil project, along with its iPlanet software, are part of a long-term vision that Sun will release over the next few months for creating reusable internet services.

The Brazil project, which has been in development over the past two years, is a web-based infrastructure that links people securely to information, computers and other devices, and is based on existing standards and protocols. Brazil's core component is the web application framework which began as a small footprint http stack originally designed to provide a URL-based interface to smart cards.

According to Sun, Brazil grew to provide a more flexible architecture for adding URL-based interfaces to arbitrary applications and devices and can also incorporate legacy applications into the system.

However, Mike Gilpin, an analyst at researcher Giga Information Group has doubts. He said: "None of our Java analysts are paying any attention to this. It seems very poorly positioned and like another technology looking for a problem. But you never know, it might have more to it."