Google Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. said they would announce on Tuesday a "collaborative effort," sparking industry speculation that the two companies are planning to release Web-based software that competes with Microsoft Corp.'s Office productivity suite.
The two companies plan to hold the morning news conference at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., which is the city where Google is based.
Sun, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., has a productivity suite called StarOffice, which is based on the open source suite OpenOffice. StarOffice supports Microsoft's file formats and includes many of the core applications of the Microsoft suite, including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software.
Google, on the other hand, has GMail, a Web mail application that lacks many of the capabilities found in Microsoft's more advanced Outlook desktop software.
Industry analysts speculate that the two companies may announce a desktop application that combines StarOffice and GMail capabilities, which would be accessible over the Internet.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
