Apple and Sun need each other....

I've read several articles of late that talk about how cozy the relationship is between Sun Microsystems and Apple. Considering the fact that apple's making money hand over fist, it would be a natural assumption that apple is in the market to BUY Sun. There are a a lot of reasons why this makes sense.

First, Solaris. Apple and Sun's OS are like Quarter pounder and Big Mac... Very similar and with common ancestry, that being Berkley BSD Unix. They could easily ( I say easily because I don't have to do it :-) ) be "merged" into a single product hosting Sun's Server software and recristened the new Mac OS X Server. I would double Mac OS X's share of the server market overnight... maybe triple. I work for a company with Sun web servers and I gotta tell you... all of the utilities in the Solaris OS are several releases behind linux and OS X. It would be the best thing to happen to solaris since the x86 recompile.

Second, Java. Apple loves java. Java loves Apple. Two-ish years ago, Apple integrated java into xCode and you can create pure java right in apple's development environment. Java can access all the cocoa methods that you have at your disposal with Objective C. The apple core programming team has taken great pains to make the experience of java on the mac first rate, and in my estimation, succeeded.

Third, Sun is dying. Yea, I said it. This star has flared and is now a red dwarf. There are just too many competing technologies. Their flagship product, Solaris, is getting very long in the tooth. Java never caught on like they hoped it would and javaFX ain't gonna get you there. Every effort they make seems mired in a tangle of programmer's jargon standing opposed to the clean consistant message of a resurgant apple. In marketing speak, there's no consistant message. They're a company that markets producuts aimed at professionals and most professionals think of them as the "java guys who also make REALLY expensive servers." They need Apple's gravitas. They need apple's marketing saavy. They need apple's sales base. They need Steve's reality distorion field encompasing their product line. And apple needs partners in their war against The Dark Lord.

Steve, if you're listening, which most likely you are not, Go have a chai latte and a vegan cranberry scone at Barnes and Noble with Scott McNealey and work this out. You'll get some really kewl professional products and Apple will become a playa in the pro web development market and nothing would make me giddier... like a school girl on christmas morning.