5 years ago... Symbian deal 'unlikely' for Sun

05.02.99 Sun CEO Scott McNealy has revealed that his company is unlikely to join the Symbian alliance.

McNealy met with the chief executives of Nokia and Ericsson - two members of the smartphone venture, which is also backed by Motorola and Psion - on consecutive evenings at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

But he told silicon.com: "We'd rather support them [Symbian] like crazy and not alienate their competitors. We want to be an arms supplier to all sides."

Meanwhile, in a keynote speech at a Sun conference in Rome, McNealy concentrated on what he has preached for some time: that computing will soon be based on a utilities model where people use remotely managed resources as they need them. (Full story.)

05.02.04 Five years back, Symbian was already establishing itself as a bulwark against the likely progress of Microsoft in mobile. Naturally, many commentators thought, a rival such as Sun Microsystems would want part of the action.