Hewlett-Packard is set to sell and support the Solaris operating system from Sun Microsystems on its line of ProLiant servers at the same level it currently does with Microsoft Windows.

These two rival companies, that compete in the server hardware vending business, on Wednesday unveiled  expansion of a multi-year partnership agreement which would see HP distribute and provide technical support for Sun’s Solaris 10 operating system on ProLiant Line servers and Blade system platforms

Quoting Jonathan Schwartz, President and CEO of Sun :

“Both Mark Hurd [HP chairman, president and CEO] and I have heard directly from customers across the world that they are interested in Solaris, running it on HP hardware, along with getting the legendary support, not only from HP organizations [but also from] the innovation they've come to expect from the Solaris organization.”

The new agreement represents a landmark shift in the market for Sun’s MySQL database platform, its Java platform and many other innovations in server and storage systems. This is a movement that will provide a “Compelling alternative for customers that are looking for more efficiency, more performance and ultimately, lower costs.” According to Schwartz.

Under this new agreement, HP will support Solaris in the same way that it currently supports other platforms such as Microsoft Windows, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux and VMWare. The biggest benefit is going to be that customers will now have a centralized access point for technical support. They can purchase the tried and true HP ProLiant or blade systems and receive support for Solaris. A definite win-win situation for both entities. HP can now position its cost effective ProLiant line into more mission critical applications than it has been able to in the past, thanks to Solaris.

It is natural to expect that Sun may lose support revenue to HP along with this new agreement, however Sun Microsystems believes that this movement will see incremental revenue over time as well as increased sales of development and other software tools or services.

Do you use Solaris at the work place? How does Solaris fair with other workstation-class and above operating systems?

Source : Tom's Hardware US