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A new version of the company's middleware system has come available, featuring better interoperability with products from other vendors.

Better late than never might be the thinking at Sun when it comes to interoperating with Microsoft. The latest version of the Jave Enterprise System finally runs on Windows 2000. Support for Windows 2003 should be available by the end of the year.

Sun includes support for JES4 running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and HP-UX, along with Solaris 10. Still absent from the list is IBM's AIX, though; Sun has been notably quoted in several places as calling AIX a dying operating system.

The company offers JES4 on a subscription basis, pricing it at $140 per employee per year. Within the product reside numerous applications to support a company's infrastructure. Existing customers will recognize them as Java System Suites.

Each suite focuses on a different need. Application developers get an assortment of tools like the Java Studio and the Application Server, for example. Other packages support email, IM, directory, and calendar services, Sun noted on its site.

For those using computing clusters, Sun has provided Cluster Agents for several components of the system: Web Server, Application Server, Directory Server, Messaging Server, Calendar Server, and Message Queue.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.