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IBM & Sun Agreement Puts Pressure on HP

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the things-heating-up dept.

eldavojohn writes "IBM has turned to long time rival Sun in an effort to bring Solaris to its mainframes. Sun may be taking this chance to drop out of the server market while at the same time capture Solaris subscriptions via IBM sales. Either way, this certainly pressures HP in the server department."

10 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. out of the server market? by jcgf · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Sun may be taking this chance to drop out of the server market while at the same time capture Solaris subscriptions via IBM sales.

    I don't know, Sun is investing quite a bit in their new niagra processors, so why would they get out of the server business?

    1. Re:out of the server market? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't know, Sun is investing quite a bit in their new niagra processors, so why would they get out of the server business?

      They're also investing in a new line of viagra processors, which promise longer up-time.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
  2. Not really mainframes by Jim+Hall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not really mainframes. Yes, the IBM / Sun agreement will eventually put Solaris on the IBM mainframe, but more importantly was this bit at the beginning of the article:

    The collaboration announced Thursday will enable Sun's Solaris operating system to run on IBM servers. That means customers that run Sun servers will be able to switch to Big Blue's hardware without having to rewrite any programs. / At first this will be possible on IBM's "x" series of servers, which also run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows or the open-source Linux system. But eventually IBM hopes to bring Solaris to the mainframe, the big multitasking machines that have been one of the company's core profit centers for decades.

    So you'll be able to run Solaris on IBM x-series hardware. This is a big deal. While you're unlikely to see big customers migrating their workload off the big systems (E25k, etc) to x-series, certainly you'll have customers moving smaller Solaris workloads to x-series. When you can run Solaris on IBM z-series (the mainframe) then customers can look again to move the big systems to IBM/Solaris.

    Wow, it's just so weird to write "IBM/Solaris". :-)

    1. Re:Not really mainframes by the_humeister · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wow, it's just so weird to write "IBM/Solaris". :-)


      Make that GNU/IBM/Solaris...

      Thanks you! I'll be here all week...
  3. Re:Another nail in the server coffin for HP by afidel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hahahaha, HP makes the best x86/x64 servers on the market right now. iLo, quickstart, foundation pack, etc all make HP's way easier to manage then the competition. Not only that but 6Hr call to repair is impossible to beat in the x86 world. The only thing that's slightly lacking is first and second level support, but I almost never need them and as soon as they start wasting my time I ask for the duty manager so I can get an SME on the phone.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  4. why doesn't IBM just buy Sun? by m2943 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why doesn't IBM just buy Sun? They'd get control of Java and Solaris, they could kill the Sun/Microsoft dealings, and they'd get Sun's server customers. Granted, at 16B, Sun is probably still somewhat overvalued, but I think such a deal would be good for IBM overall.

  5. Re:Possible Futures of Possible Pasts by porky_pig_jr · · Score: 4, Funny

    If sun had bought Apple, z-frames would have the iPod slot (and come with an optional matching white color).

  6. Re:This is dissapointing. by mjt5282 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are you kidding me? Sun has just announced the T2 (Niagara 2) processor - 64 concurrent threads. High speed 10G networking. Built-in encryption support for apache. Sun is still in the "game" - its just that the "game" has changed and Sun can no longer make money selling $1M USD refrigerator-sized servers. Hopefully, Sun can make money by selling the most technologically advanced sub $20K servers that are optimized for scalability, throughput and middleware (Databases, web, infra etc).

  7. What's in it for IBM by Daishiman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Disclaimer: I work for IBM.

    IBM is becoming primarily a services company, doing systems development, "solutions architecture", and outsourced operations. A LOT of people at IBM are familiar with Sun technology and have used it at one point or another. Heck, most of the Global Services staff that maintain AIX servers also maintain Solaris servers. How hard do you think it would be for IBM to expand their business saying "Sure, we support Solaris. We can build that payroll system that you need for your company on your existing Sun infrastructure. BTW, can we interest you in a new pSeries for these workloads?".

    Indeed, this is opening up a new area of the market where they can now claim expertise and recognition. And when the installed customer base is satisfied with what they have, it'll be 10 times easier to migrate their hardware to IBM stuff, and software to IBM proprietary OSes, if there's more profit to be made there.

  8. Re:Nah, this'll never fly by Xiaran · · Score: 4, Funny

    the big one is that they know how it works all the way down to the metal and they can get someone on site in 4 hours who can fix it

    I admire your optimism. I was young once :)