IBM will distribute Sun Microsystems’ Solaris operating system on its x86 based rack and blade servers.
IBM is the first Tier One vendor partner for the operating system, making it the strongest partnership for bundling operating systems with hardware to date, Sun chief executive Jonathan Schwartz touted in a conference call where the two firms unveiled the agreement.
The bundling agreement also spans collaboration on optimizing drivers and the operating system itself to run on IBM hardware.
IBM is furthermore considering supporting Solaris on its System Z mainframe systems.
The partnership raises questions about the competition between the two vendors, because both IBM and Sun now are able to offer virtually identical systems.
IBM’s vice president of the Systems and Technology Group Bill Zeitler however argued that IT vendors no longer are required to differentiate through offering closed hardware and software stacks, but by offering customers a broad selection of choices.
“We are not trying to force the client into one operating system or the other,” Zeitler said. “If Solaris has characteristics that you like, we’d like you to consider our hardware platform.”
Charles King, a principal analyst with Pund-IT, typified the trend as “essential pragmatism”.
“A large number of companies happily use and prefer Sun’s Solaris as their business operating system of choice. IBM’s decision to become Sun’s first Tier One original equipment manufacturer reflects that reality,” King wrote in a news analysis.
HP currently supports Solaris on some of its server hardware, but the relationship between HP and Sun is “at an arm’s length”, said Schwartz. Dell also has publicly stated that it is considering supporting Solaris.
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