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Update: Sun Microsystems To Distribute Google Search Toolbar

Eric Schmidt: "We're in the end user search business”

Google and Sun Microsystems "collaborative effort" (as announced here) was officially announced Tuesday.

Despite the speculations around the deal, including fiction such as "Google and Sun to collaborate in crushing Microsoft's Office" or even "Google and Sun to create rival for Windows Vista", the collaboration isn't more than Sun and Google helping each other with the Google Toolbar and Java Runtime.

"We're in the end user search business," said Eric Schmidt when asked whether Google will try to take on Microsoft's Windows Vista with Sun at their side.

When asked if Sun and Google are "going after" Microsoft, McNealy responded: "We're going after revenue, growth, profits, customers, and ease of use."

Sun will distribute the Google Search Toolbar along with their Java Runtime software and Google will help distributing the same Java Runtime.

Indeed, this might help Sun's OpenOffice gain a few more users - as Java Runtime allows users to run Microsoft Office's rival. However, it allows a lot of other applications and even web-based pages to load and work properly - the fact that OpenOffice uses it is just one of its uses.

The deal also mentions that Google will help improve OpenOffice as well as Sun's Open-Source Operating System, Solaris. Even though the actual intentions are vague, Google will most probably only assist in part of the abovementioned software development - and most probably, only in areas that interest them directly, such as the Java Runtime software.