Hinky dinky parley voo

War!--huh--what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Say it again.

Not so in the case of the prolonged Sun/Microsoft War of 1982-2004. Not only has the war between the software giants resulted, as wars throughout history have, in the proliferation of technology and innovation to the masses, it has provided those of us in the often staid profession of trade journalism with years of sarcastic quips, barbed quotes and quality editorial fodder for slow news days. In a way, I hate to see it end.

Officially, a peace agreement was reached last month when Microsoft and Sun Microsystems entered into a 10-year arrangement that settles many of their legal battles and works toward better interoperability between their platforms and protocols. It cost Microsoft $1.6 billion in reparations, but the two say they can now let bygones be bygones.

Unofficially? This war hasn't ended. Think Korea. Think of the Crusades, for that matter. Wars and old rivalries never really end; they just get buried for a while when warring parties feel the mutual need to re-group and re-arm themselves.

Pressure from the world community often helps bring about the peace, and both Microsoft and Sun were being pressured by the worldwide community of software and server licensees to make their systems less contentious. It also helps keep the peace when a neutral third party from an emerging market intervenes. Thank you, Linux.

So for now, with the verbal guns of Microsoft and Sun silenced, users of communications technology will benefit from the peace by being able to use both Java and .NET platforms in their data centers and back offices without having to choose one or the other. Journalists, on the other hand, will have to look elsewhere for a good fight. IBM versus HP? Verizon versus SBC? Powell versus the 50 states?

Peace is good. But I got a little hinky seeing Sun's Scott McNealy and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer on stage recently smiling and glad-handing each other like they were Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.

Nonetheless, I will try to comfort from the old Burma-Shave jingle of 1930: Hinky dinky. Parley Voo. Cheer up the face. The war is through.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@primediabusiness.com.