Sun to install Windows Server OS on its hardware
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(InfoWorld) - Sun will start selling its lineup of 64-bit PC servers preinstalled with the Windows Server operating system from Microsoft within 90 days, the two companies said today. The two longtime rivals also said they will cooperate on technical development of Microsoft's server operating system on Sun Fire hardware as well as making Sun's Solaris Unix operating system fully manageable under Microsoft's recently introduced System Center Virtual Machine Manager software.                                                     "Management interoperability is part of our management strategy," said Andrew Lees, corporate vice president for the server and tools marketing and solutions group at Microsoft. The moves could help Sun boost sales of its servers, which have been hurting ever since the bursting of the dot-com bubble saw the rise of cheap PC servers running either Linux or Windows. "People who might not have in the past considered a Sun server for Windows will now consider it," said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. Sun has been making aggressive partnership moves. IBM said last month that it would sell PC-based servers and blades using Solaris. For Microsoft, the tie-up could help the company compete in the hot virtualization market, where it is No. 2 to market leader VMware. Sun has long had its own virtualization technology, called Solaris Containers. Today's announcement, the companies said, is an expansion of an initial technical cooperation agreement signed in April 2004, during which Microsoft also paid Sun $1.6 billion to settle lingering antitrust and patent disputes. "What we have had has already produced good fruit, but we are looking forward to a significant expansion," Lees said. Sun will also build an interoperability center on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Wash. The companies will also expand their Internet Protocol television partnership, which involves Microsoft's MediaRoom IPTV and multimedia platform and Sun's server and storage systems. Sun launched its Sun Fire servers two years ago as its first foray into the fast-growing PC server market. The servers run less-expensive but powerful AMD Opteron processors and start at prices of less than $1,000. The Sun Fire servers already support Windows Server, along with Red Hat Linux, Novell's Suse Enterprise Linux, VMware's ESX virtualization system, and Sun's own Solaris operating system, according to Lisa Sieker, vice president of marketing at Sun Systems. That allowed customers who had volume-license agreements with Microsoft to send their image DVDs to Sun and have the company preinstall Windows Server, Sieker said. But with this agreement, Sun will now officially be able to ship servers preinstalled with Windows Server to any customer or channel partner, she said. Windows Server will still be unable to run on Sun Fire servers using Sun's own Sparc64 chips, she said. Sun will continue to support and resell Red Hat and Suse Linux on its Sun Fire servers, she said. Future versions of those servers will also use Intel processors. Asked if Sun's latest alliance shows its intent to compete more directly with Linux and VMware, Sieker said, "We are responding to strong customer demand for this.... It's a complex marketplace out there." Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Sun Microsystems plans to unveil on Monday the latest version of its flagship Solaris operating system. It also intends to offer a free version of the program to
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Servers running an early version of company's Windows Server 2008 operating system are powering Microsoft.com.
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Microsoft&#39;s main Windows server administration console is slated for release by the beginning of October and will be in a planned management suite next year.
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Following a flurry of Web reports, Microsoft confirmed Monday that the much-anticipated Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system will ship today to manufacturers along with Windows Server 2008.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ has released the second beta of a new server aimed at giving users a way to connect and manage Windows Vista PCs, devices, and printers in their homes. Beta 2 of Windows Home Server, which already has been tested by more than 1,000 Microsoft employees, software and hardware partners, is now available, Microsoft said. The company soon plans to extend the product's beta program, and those who want to test beta 2 of the OS can sign up at this Web site. Microsoft also unveiled the Windows Home Server Blog, which will track the progress of the software's development, oin Monday. Additionally, Charlie Kinder, Microsoft general manager of Windows Home Server, also maintains a blog where he will post about the product. Microsoft introduced Windows Home ServerÂ at theÂ Consumer Electronics Show in Las VegasÂ in January. Hewlett-Packard will have the first server built on the OS, a product called the HP MediaSmart Server, later this year. Currently, Microsoft only plans to make Windows Home Server available through OEMs, not sell it directly to consumers.
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At its Network Computing &#39;04Q4 launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc.  launched the much anticipated Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), addressing the enormous waste of resources forced upon customers
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Former rivals Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have been working together to make their products more compatible -- permitting Windows to run on Sun&#39;s hardware and making StarOffice and Java Runtime Environment compatible with XP SP2.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has clarified how licensing for its current version of Windows Server works when paired with virtualization software. However, customers may face a whole new set of licensing rules once the next version, Windows Server 2008, is released later this year. In a white paper called "Licensing Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 to Run with Virtualization Technologies," Microsoft outlines clearly how to license the current version of Windows Server -- Windows Server 2003 R2 -- for specific third-party virtualization technology, including VMware ESX, VMware Vmotion and SWsoft Virtuozzo. It also explains licensing for Microsoft's own System Center Virtual Machine Manager. The document can be found on a Web page that also includes previously released virtualization calculators that help customers determine the cost of Windows Server licensing in various virtualization scenarios. Virtualization has complicated server OS pricing because it allows more than one instance of server software to run on a single server, while traditional OS pricing has been per server, assuming that only one version of an OS can run on one piece of hardware. Virtualization allows software to be emulated via a virtual machine, and so run without having to be physically installed. But even if Microsoft has done enough to clarify how its current version of Windows Server should be licensed for virtualization scenarios, customers could find themselves needing new guidelines once Windows Server 2008 is released, something Microsoft expects to do by the end of the year. Formerly code-named Longhorn, the next version of Windows Server will have virtualization technology built in, which could preclude the need for third-party virtualization software. "We believe most customers will choose to use Windows Server virtualization, which comes as a role within Windows Server 2008," said Microsoft spokesman Patrick O'Rourke. "But customers still have the option to use third-party server virtualization software on Windows Server 2008." Pricing for Windows Server 2008 has not yet been announced. According to the Microsoft white paper, current virtualization pricing for Windows Server 2003 R2 is as follows: Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition (SE) allows a customer to run only one instance of the software in either a physical or virtual way on a server. Users need to assign an SE license for each running instance of Windows Server on a system. Customers have more flexibility with the enterprise and datacenter editions of Windows Server 2003, however. They can run one physical instance of Windows Server and up to four simultaneous virtual instances with one Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition license, and can run unlimited physical or virtual versions of the software when Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition is licensed for every physical processor in a server Windows Server 2008 is currently available in a beta 3 version.
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Microsoft will come out with a special version of Windows next year for clusters, but it won&#39;t run on Intel&#39;s most powerful server chip, at least for now.
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Microsoft gives us an update on Windows Home Server
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Sun is working on technology to make it easier to run different languages on the Java Virtual Machine.
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Sun Java Workstations are designed to support simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit computing with no compromises in performance, allowing users to maintain their existing x86 infrastructure
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Sun Microsystems today took aim at two core pieces of its server strategy, announcing a new generation of UltraSPARC processors and a key software win for Solaris x86.
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NEW YORK, November 15  - Sun Microsystems Inc (SUNW.NAS) has introduced the latest version of its operating system, Solaris 10, which would be offered to end-users for free.
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Microsoft on Monday announced that Windows Home Server has been released to manufacturing, with systems using the new operating system expected to go on sale this fall. Home Server, code-named "Quattro," is designed for easily linking together multiple computers in a home network and sharing media.
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Blog: Microsoft announces public download of Windows Home Server Release Candidate