"VARs and users are the big winners," said Frank Basanta, director of technology at Systems Solutions, a New York-based systems integrator. "A long-standing feud between two of the major players in the technology industry is over. This will mean better integration and collaboration of the two different product sets and gives the VARs a much deeper ability to work with both products and not fear any kind of reprisal from either one of vendors. This brings us closer to a true heterogenous computing environment."
Basanta said the deal could save VARs hundreds of hours of costly development and integration time. "These are savings that will be passed on to clients," said Basanta. "This had to happen because Linux is making such strong inroads."
"As Java and .Net continue to grow as platforms, the ease of interoperability and seamless integration becomes more important, especially for clients that are moving toward service-oriented architectures and smart clients," said Ken Winell, CEO of Econium, Totowa, N.J. The pact will let developers find the best fit of technologies and ease concerns about heterogeneous environments, he added.
David Tan, CTO of Chips Computer Consulting, a Lake Success, N.Y., solution provider, agreed that the deal will be a boon to VARs.
"This is more opportunity for us," said Tan. "We can now integrate systems that previously could not talk to another or work together. Now you can come up with solutions that bridge those two technologies. It creates a world of new applications possibilities."
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