To bring to the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) to the widest possible market, Sun announced an agreement with IBM in which IBM will distribute the Solaris OS and Solaris subscriptions for select x86-based IBM System x servers and BladeCenter servers (IBM System x3650, System x3755, and System x3850 servers).

The Solaris OS is already supported on IBM Websphere, Lotus, DB2, Rational and Tivoli. IBM also already supports the Solaris OS on select IBM BladeCenter servers (BladeCenter HS21 and LS41 servers). IBM wants to offer its customers a range of OS choices.

If customers switch from Sun servers to IBM, they can run their programs on IBM hardware without rewriting the programs. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz explained the benefit: "Our view is when you make your products available on other people's platforms, you just meet more customers, which just gives you more opportunities."

"Solaris adoption continues to accelerate, among both the open source and commercial communities -- driven by bundled virtualization for servers and storage, support for thousands of ISVs, including nearly the entirety of IBM's software portfolio, and outstanding operational economics. Solaris is clearly a choice customers are demanding," Schwartz said.

William Zeitler of IBM said he hopes it is the beginning of "what could be a stronger, cooperative set of offerings between our two firms. IBM is the first major x86 vendor to have such an agreement with Sun; and the first big vendor apart from Sun to offer Solaris on blade servers. Today we expand that agreement to help clients migrate to Solaris on IBM x86-based System x servers."

Sun and IBM will also invest in testing and system qualification. [...read more...]

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