I.B.M. and Sun to Cooperate in Technologies for Servers

Two longtime rivals in computing, I.B.M. and Sun Microsystems , plan to cooperate on server technologies, a move that could put pressure on their competitor Hewlett-Packard.
Sun’s chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, said the new “comprehensive relationship” brought “a tectonic shift in the market landscape.”
The collaboration announced yesterday will enable Sun’s Solaris operating system to run on International Business Machine servers. Among other things, that means customers that run Sun servers will be able to switch to I.B.M. hardware without having to rewrite any programs.
At first this will be possible on I.B.M.’s x series of servers, which also run Microsoft Windows or the open-source Linux system. But eventually I.B.M. hopes to bring Solaris to mainframes, the big multitasking machines that have been a core profit center for the company for decades.
I.B.M. has been expanding the kinds of programs that can run on mainframes, to encourage customers to consolidate multiple servers onto these bigger machines as a cost-saving move.
These steps threaten to take Sun servers out of action in favor of I.B.M. machines. But Sun can gain from this partnership by collecting Solaris service subscriptions from customers who run that operating system on I.B.M. hardware.
The arrangement is in keeping with Sun’s strategy to rebound from a devastating slump in the first part of the decade by broadening its role as a software vendor. This week, Sun and Google expanded their partnership as Google began distributing Sun’s StarOffice suite of word processing, spreadsheets and other desktop programs.
“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,” Mr. Schwartz said.
Hewlett-Packard is locked in a battle with I.B.M. for leadership in the worldwide server market. I.B.M. and H.P. each had 29 percent share in the most recent assessment by the market tracker IDC, while Sun and Dell Inc. were tied for third, with 11 percent each.