Recently, Sun took its best shot at presenting itself as a bankable alternative to IBM, BEA, and Microsoft. The big news is that Sun is announcing a free Platform Edition of its new Sun ONE Application Server 7--which is akin to a free developer edition, only you can build a commercial Web site on it. Sun's message from this day forward is that the app server should be considered part of the operating system. And when you get the Solaris 9 operating system, Sun will now throw in its Directory Server.

Grabbing market share with free stuff is nothing new. To me, the most impressive thing about the rollout was the way in which pumped-up Sun execs kept drawing attention to the big picture: What really counts today, they said, is the entire software suite--the portal server, the identity server, the integration server, the development environment--and how the whole ball of wax holds together and integrates with the outside world. That's exactly right. And when you consider Sun's complete software stack, including its new Sun ONE Studio development tools, the company makes a compelling case that it's a viable player, even though IBM, BEA, and Microsoft provide similar offerings.