Sun's Solaris - IBM's new tool to knock down HP

International Business Machines Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., the long-time rivals in computing, eventually decided on Thursday to unite on operating systems technologies, striking a blow against their mutual competitor Hewlett-Packard Co.

The tech titans yesterday signed an "operating system agreement" under which the two companies would cooperate on server technologies. The deal would allow Armonk-based IBM Corp., also known as Big Blue, to sell Sun’s Solaris operating system in some of its servers, making it the first major hardware vendor to resell Sun's one and only OS technology.

"Solaris is a wonderful addition to what we already have," said Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president and group executive in IBM hardware's division, during a conference call. "This shows our commitment to offer clients a choice."

IBM, which already supports the Solaris OS on some of its BladeCenter servers, would now include Solaris 10 on its "x" series of servers, including x3650 (two-socket Xeon), x3755 (four-socket Opteron), and x3850 (four-socket and higher Xeon MP) rack-mounted servers.

Its Solaris 10 embedded BladeCenter servers include HS21 (Xeon-based), which is a two-socket Xeon blade, and LS41 (Opteron-based) blade servers, which is a four-socket blade (made up of two two-socket Opteron blades).

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Sun Microsystems announced yesterday that its Solaris operating system will be available to run applications on IBM's low-end servers, with immediate effect, meaning users that run Sun servers will be able to switch to Big Blue's hardware without having to rewrite any programs.

Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s President and Chief Executive Officer, labeled their deal with Big Blue as a "tectonic shift in the market landscape" that will enhance IBM/Sun products’ overall appeal to a broader range of clients. "We want to make sure we're open to as much market opportunity as possible," he said.

The server and software maker Sun has been trying to promote Solaris as an open alternative to Linux, whose popularity severely cut into Sun's bottom line in the early part of this decade. But Sun has so far failed to rally much support from rival server vendors like IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. or Dell Inc.

Although, Sun’s OS technology will initially be available on IBM's "x" series of servers, which also run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows or the open-source Linux system, but ultimately IBM intends to bring Solaris to its popular mainframe systems.

IBM will continue to market its own AIX operating system as well as Linux and Microsoft Windows Server.

Who would be affected most by IBM-Sun relationship is Hewlett-Packard (HP), another major computing company that currently supports Solaris on some of its server hardware and is locked in a battle with IBM for leadership in the server market.

Schwartz said their relationship with HP is “at arms length". The Palo Alto, California-based HP is “neither an OEM for Solaris nor can they sell service subscriptions to customers. The relationship with IBM is really the strongest we have with any partner in the marketplace," he added.

Meanwhile, Paul Miller, HP's vice president of server marketing, said the IBM/Sun union would no way affect their existence in the market, as the IBM and Sun's deal does not present any difference to customers. "I don't see what a collaboration brings them," he said. "I don't see an additive technology here."

Shares of IBM slipped $1.54, or 1.4%, to close at $109.69, while Sun shares rose 7 cents, or 1.5%, to $4.72.