Former enemies Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have made the announcement to launch a new product that will let users sign on to multiple networks at single time. This project was a part of a collaborate deal between Sun and Microsoft.

According to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the co-developed software will be integrated in Microsoft software sometime by 2006.

Both companies were originally working on enabling this feature separately, but a collaborative deal from both Sun and Microsoft led the companies to work together.

Even though Sun CEO Scott McNealy was bitter against Microsoft’s Ballmer and Bill Gates, he gladly answered questions with Ballmer after initially introducing the product to the market.

Sun had previously filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for anticompetitive behavior against Microsoft, after the world’s largest software giant rewrote portions of Sun’s Java programming environment for its Windows operating system. Later, the software maker decided to remove Java completely from its OS.

Last Spring, both companies surprisingly announced their 10-year collaborative deal with a $1.95 billion settlement as part of a final closing to the lawsuit.

"In the first year, we've moved from the courtroom to the computer lab," said Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems. "Now we're moving from the lab to the market," he continued.

He further added that industry analysts never speculated that Sun and Microsoft would ever work together successfully, but he commented, "A year ago, the skeptics doubted that we couldn’t agree on the shape of the table, much less collaborate on solving some of the industry's toughest problems," he said. "Surprise - we did just that and today we've taken a huge step forward."

Additionally, he added, "This is just the beginning of a long list of projects we're working on."

The specifications for the software are now available to software developers. Both Sun and Microsoft said they have plans to make the software available later this year.