In a classic example of rivals coming together to advance a market sector, IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. are collaborating on server technologies. The agreement calls for Sun's Solaris operating system to run on IBM servers. The idea apparently grew out of a meeting Sun president and CEO Jonathan Schwartz had a year ago. "We're thrilled to be working with IBM to bring the Solaris OS to the broadest market possible — they are a natural partner for Sun," said Schwartz. By participating as one of more than 800 partners in the IBM BladeCenter ecosystem, Sun has effectively joined others in the industry helping IBM in the development and adoption of open blade server platforms.

The partnership is notable for several reasons. IBM has been pro-Linux for several years so to bring on another operating system is noteworthy. When Sun opened up the source code for Solaris in 2005 it looks like they were gunning for an announcement like this. Why? Because Sun recognizes that its proprietary hardware model is dead and software will likely be the wave of the future. It looks like instead of following in Oracle's footsteps of growing its software business via acquisitions, Sun plans on growing through partnerships.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sun Microsystems has been busy making friends. Earlier this week, the firm announced that its office productivity software, StarOffice, is now available through the Google Pack software download service.

In other news, IBM was rumored to be buying Wind River Systems Inc., which makes a version of the Linux operating system for embedding in devices ranging from cell phones to set-top boxes. Wind River has an enterprise value of about $740 million. —Stacey Higginbotham

Go to the story on the alliance
Get to the audiocast of the announcement here
See the release issued by Sun Micro

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