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Details of the deal between industry heavyweights Sun Microsystems Inc. and America Online Inc. (AOL) were finally released on March 30. Sun and the newly merged AOL/Netscape Communications Corp. will form an alliance that focuses on delivering electronic commerce products. The collective effort will be called the Sun-Netscape Alliance and will report to a board made up of AOL and Sun executives.
The Sun-Netscape Alliance will be headed by president and general manager Mark Tolliver, and will operate as an independent software company with approximately 2,000 employees drawn equally from Sun and Netscape. It will be responsible for merging existing technologies from all three companies.
News of the deal was first reported in November, when AOL declared its intention to acquire Netscape, but specific details of how the three companies would operate were kept quiet until the merger was finalized in March.
Sun President and Chief Operating Officer Ed Zander says the goals of the alliance are to become the world's leading e-commerce software and infrastructure company, to develop products for multiple...