Broad strategic alliance announced

Sun Microsystems and Intel Corporation have announced a broad strategic alliance centred on Intel's endorsement of the Solaris operating system (OS) and Sun's commitment to deliver a comprehensive family of enterprise and telecommunications servers and workstations based on Intel Xeon processors.

The scope of the agreement spans Solaris, Java and NetBeans software and Intel Xeon microprocessors, as well as other Intel and Sun enterprise-class technologies. The alliance also includes joint engineering, design and marketing efforts.

As part of the alliance, Intel will be embracing Solaris as a mainstream OS and the enterprise-class, mission-critical UNIX OS for Intel Xeon processor-based servers. Intel is also endorsing Sun's Solaris, Java and NetBeans products and will actively support the OpenSolaris and open Java communities from which they continue to evolve.

Intel has signed a Solaris OEM agreement enabling Intel to support and distribute the Solaris OS to its users as market opportunities arise and consistently with Intel's product strategies.

The two companies will work together on the adoption of key enterprise-class Intel and Sun technologies for Sun's systems based on Intel Xeon processors including Intel Virtualisation Technology, Intel IO Acceleration Technology (IOAT) and Intel Demand Based Switching.