Sun Microsystems is seriously considering joining the IBM-led Eclipse open source tools initiative, a Sun representative acknowledged on Wednesday. The company does not see Eclipse as competitive to Sun’s own efforts. “It’s actually beneficial in many ways to the larger Java community,” providing plug-ins for ease of use, the representative said. However, Sun remains fully committed to its NetBeans open source program for Java. Oracle in 2002 proposed a single API for access to IDEs for both NetBeans and Eclipse camps. The Eclipse consortium is meeting Wednesday, but Sun as of yet had not made a decision on whether to join, according to Sun’s representative. Also, Sun at the SunNetwork conference in San Francisco in mid-September plans to reveal its developer strategy for its Project Orion platform. Project Orion is Sun’s plan to bundle its various software products with its Solaris operating system. The package will include infrastructure products such as the Sun ONE (Open Net Environment) Web Server, Application Server and server management products. Technology Industry