It's been sort of a meeting of the minds at a very high level. Bob Sutor, IBM's program director of XML technologies, agrees. It's important for us to get together with Microsoft. If we get agreement, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle and the industry will say, 'This is something we can trust. That's why it's important we continue to talk to Microsoft.
Analysts see the alliance as a marriage of necessity.
The new collaboration is ironic given that the companies were once bitter enemies. But for now, analysts said, the two will work together for the common good of creating XML standards. IBM's budding relationship with Microsoft may also be the result of Big Blue's friction with Sun Microsystems, creator of the Java programming language, analysts said. Over the past few years, IBM has invested millions in adapting Java as a common language for use across its mainframe and PC server systems. In recent months, IBM has indicated it may favor XML to perform that task.