Looks like everyone is going realtime now. And toolbars at the bottom of browsers seem to be the craze nowadays. It reminds me of 1999 actually when there were toolbars which paid you to watch ads. But of course this is different. This is more towards the hollowing out of the desktop where functionality that was originally available only as desktop apps are replicated inside browsers. The "live" nature of web-apps means a near instantaneous network can be built up for users, enhancing the instant-gratification for them.

Buying Sun gives Oracle access to popular software it can wield against its competitors. In addition to Java, Oracle gains Solaris, widely used in industries including telecom and finance. Oracle also picks up the MySQL database, which is available free under an open-source licensing arrangement, and could help Oracle check sales of Microsoft's SQL Server database to smaller companies.

Oracle has bought Sun and this article shares what are some of the synergies involved in this acquisition.

ooooi!!! this new UI is so good!