back to article HP and Sun in Solaris bear hug

HP and Sun Microsystems have entered into an agreement designed to simplify sales, service, and support for customers who run - or can be coaxed to run - Sun's Solaris 10 operating system on HP's x86 hardware. Under the new partnership - discussed on Wednesday morning in a joint conference call hosted by HP and Sun execs - HP …

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  1. David Halko
    Go

    Diversity is Good for HP & SUN!

    "HP will join Intel, AMD, and others in "participating directly in the OpenSolaris community"

    Seeing the addition of more brains from HP shifting over into the SUN world is a good thing!

    HP will get the opportunity to gain from industry leading advancements like DTrace, ZFS, Containers, highly threaded OS support.

    SUN gets another Solaris channel, to profit with software sales from another hardware vendor, to fund more industry leading advancements.

    Both companies will be able to participate the building one of the most robust Open Source operating system on the market.

  2. David Halko
    Go

    Bear Hug Video!

    SUN is training HP!

    http://www.sun.com/home-modules/media/v_solaris.xml?intcmp=2562

  3. David Halko
    Thumb Up

    Is the HP deal with SUN tied to the rapid decline in Windows Server sales?

    Considering the report for Q4 Server Sales...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/idc_q4_server_numbers/page2.html

    "In Q4, Windows server sales fell by 17.8 per cent to $4.8bn... Windows had a 35.3 per cent share of the $13.5bn revenue pie in the quarter, but Unix edged it out with $4.9bn in sales, down only 6.2 per cent from the year-ago quarter."

    Is this a sign that HP is trying to keep from losing revenue in it's x86 lines at 17.8% and possibly shift those customers to the other side of the equation?

    Adding another UNIX operating system to the mix may be an opportunity to isolate itself from the Windows server free-fall, since UNIX servers showed more stability in server sales.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    What's the big deal Mr H?

    Sorry to dampen your obvious enthusiasm Mr Halko, but this is no big deal. HP bought EDS, and EDS pushes Solaris as it's "Unix de preferance" (apologies for my quasi-French). So by making this announcement HP might sell a few more ProLiants (and they need all the sales they can get at the moment), and they look like they're offering choice. Heck, even IBM support's Solaris so - being bitchy about it - maybe this HP announcement is just them playing catchup with Big Blue.

    Want to bet against them offering a sweet deal to customers with software subscription, hardware maintance and support - a triple play? No? Me neither. ;)

    Oh, and according to the article, it's the "full fat" Solaris that they're pushing, not (necessarily) the "Open" variety. Don't think I'm slagging off Solaris, because I'm not - heck I run it at home myself and it's quite neat, and I'd push it rather than HPUX in a heartbeat. And the guy (or guys or gals - whatever) who decided to allow free licenses for Solaris x86 gets a free beer from me.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    We won't know any answers...

    until Matt shows up to tell us all what to think...

  6. Bill
    Happy

    Ahhh, there it is....

    and the migration from HP-UX to the Open Standard Solaris on X64 has begun. Just one more nail in the coffin that is Itanium...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Amazing

    The management of these companies is amazing. After straightening out the Sun Blade Server line, NOW they cut a deal with HP. sigh........... Now I have to go learn the HP hardware base now I suppose. My head hurts.

  8. Matt Bryant
    Unhappy

    Re: HP-UX

    You guys are assholes...

  9. dedmonst
    Paris Hilton

    trying to follow the logic...

    I'm not saying this is a bad thing, especially for Sun Solaris users who want to use Proliants, but I'm trying to see what Sun get out of this.

    So HP sell you the hardware and the Solaris support contract and make $$$ on that...

    Sun *give* you the OS and make nothing on that...

    So no doubt there's some sort of back-end on the HP software support contract, which makes Sun a little bit of money, but I can't see it being a strong revenue stream.

    Where do Sun make money out of this - or are we past that now? Are Sun so hooked up in ensuring the survival of their "crown jewel" OS, they've forgotten what comnpanies are supposed to do?

    Oh and @Bill - re your comment on HP-UX & Itanium. I'm not sure HP care much about the low end of the commercial UNIX marketplace. Proliant/Linux has been stamping all over that much longer than Solaris. There'll be a space for commercial UNIX, be it HP, IBM or even Sun/SPARC for a long time to come yet. (IBM still make wheelbarrows full of cash out of Mainfames, while folks like you were hammering the nails in that coffin 20 years ago). Vendor don't turn their backs on businesses that make significantly better margins than the x64/Windows/*nix space.

    Paris, cos you'd never get her for free...

  10. Dan JOhnson

    This is a great deal for HP, but...

    Contrary to what Sun's execs may be thinking (and it's clear their thinking has been somewhat substandard over the last few years), this deal is yet another nail in Sun's caskets. Who cares how many platforms Solaris can run on? This move is going to prove itself to be yet another strategic blunder by Sun. Sun no longer chages for Solaris licenses, but they do charge a heafty premium for support. They've been cost-centering support in an effort to increase the bottom line and, as a result, their support, well, in a word, sucks. Now they are going to allow HP to distribute Solaris and to sell support for it; they already have a similar OEM wgreement in place with IBM. Sure, it increases Solaris' install base, but Sun won't make any money as a result - beyond fees HP pays to Sun for the "privilege."

    I see the board at HP breaking out the good Scotch and cigars on this deal. They just positioned themselves to take significant market share from Sun in the x86 space. Customers can now buy Solaris and support for it directly from HP and run it on their rock-solid Proliant line of servers, thereby avoiding the chaos that has become Sun Microsystems. And when Sun fails - as it appears it will - HP gets to pick up ownership of Solaris for a song. That is, if IBM, Fujitsu, Google or Microsoft down't get it first. This is just another bit of evidence that Sun is positioning itself for sale or a meger.

  11. Andy White
    Unhappy

    @Matt Bryant

    "You guys are assholes..."

    Now, Matt, that just isn't very nice. Are you having a bad day??

  12. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    RE: Dave Halk, RE: Ahhh, there it is.... & Re: HP-UX

    RE: Dave Halko

    Dave, that rushing sound you here is all those Sun customers rushing to get off SPARC and onto a viable platform in the shape of hp ProLiant. Just think about it for a second - Ponytail will make peanuts off the licence revenue whilst hp will cash in on hardware, support and services, especially when migrating all those EDS Sun customers to hp kit. But even then, Slowairs x86 will still be fifth in line at hp, where hp-ux and Windows will still be the primary OSs, Linux and OpenVMS will follow close behind, and Slowairs will lag by about ten years. Why ten years? Because that's about the position Linux was in with hp then that Slowairs is in now, and since then a lot of time and money has gone into testing and development to make Linux a tried and proven proposition across the whole hp range. Slowaris has just started, so even if hp can be bothered to put any effort in, it will still be years behind where Linux companies such as Red Hat and Novell stand on ProLiant.

    RE: Ahhh, there it is....

    ".... and the migration from HP-UX to the Open Standard Solaris on X64 has begun....." Ah, Bill, if only you had a clue. This is start of the migration of all those EDS customers using Slowaris off SPARC onto HP ProLiant. Seeing as EDS is Sun's largest partner, that means an even bigger hole in the Sun figures which a tiny bit of licence revenue will not replace. Ponytail has made the best he can out of the inevitable defections, but Sun's financial position just got even worse.

    "....Just one more nail in the coffin that is Itanium....." And as I pointed out in the last thread, you Sunshiners just can't resist FUDing Itanium for any reason. What you should realise is this is the end of the Galaxy team - who is going to want a poor copy of a real x64 range when they can have the market-leading x64 server range, associated management software, proven and integrated storage, and all from one vendor with one support contract? I sense a big stack of pink slips going through the Sun mail system to the Galaxy boys right now. But it doesn't just stop there - Sun's server business was relying on Galaxy to prop up the disasters of niche Niagara, niche Rock (should it ever arrive) and the only real chips in Fujitsu's SPARC64. Without a reason to buy Galaxy, why will Sun customers bother looking at the rest of the Sun range? And without the Galaxy money, how will Sun keep Rock on course? Face it, the SPARC termination announcement has just been made, Niagara will be dead in two or more years, and Rock just got aborted. Sun has just become a software only business.

    RE: HP-UX

    "You guys are assholes..." Once again the same tasteless idiocy from the fake Matt Bryant. Strange that he always folows Bill and has the same poor level of eleoquence and technical knowledge.... Anyway, everyone knows the correct spelling for us Brits use when describing such people as Bill is "arsehole". Maybe when Sun's server bizz is gone his next Mcjob won't have internet access to allow him to post such drivel.

  13. Andy White
    Coat

    Just rude

    So 'both' Matt Bryants are rude then

    "he always folows Bill and has the same poor level of eleoquence"

    presumably Bill can't spell either - oh no that'll be you! How can you slag off someone else's eloquence with a sentence like that? As a fellow Brit I would expect a bit more sophistication.

    And at the risk of getting back to the issue at hand - Solaris has been a supported OS on Proliant for ages. This is an OEM deal and therefore generates a revenue for Sun which wasn't previously there - albeit probably a small one in reality. Eg in future you should be able to order your Proliant with Solaris pre-installed rather than doing it yourself. Although to be fair putting it on yourself is extremely easy. What this doesn't do is suddenly open up a new option for customers to buy HP and run Solaris because that option was already there.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Re: Matt Bryant and Galaxy range ?

    Instead of blowing steam out of your a$$$ how about:

    http://www.c0t0d0s0.org/archives/5116-Sun-X4600M2-vs-HP-ProLiant-DL785-G5-revisited.html

    http://www.c0t0d0s0.org/archives/5104-8-socket-benchmarking-revisited.html

    http://c0t0d0s0.org/archives/4962-SAP-Benchmarks-revisited.html

  15. Dan JOhnson

    UNIX is here to stay

    I;ve been hearing about the death of UNIX my entire 20 year career. Quite to the contrary, UNIX-based O/S deployments have been steadily growing in all market spaces. When we include Linux as a variant of UNIX (which it is), UNIX is not the O/S running on 50% of the servers worldwide. Linux has its place, but it will not be the end of AIX, Solaris or HP-UX, BSD, etc. as so many young "Linuxiteers" love to claim.

    Ditto on mainframes. They are still around, more powerful than ever, and sales are good. High-end UNIX servers from HP and IBM are de facto mainframes. IBM, HP and others understand that big towers are what some of us have to have and they are more than happy to build them for us, because the margins on the gear are huge.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Re: Matt

    Matt is pretty hypocritical, now isn't he?

    Accusing others of using FUD against Itanium when he is the biggest FUDster of the lot. Never missing an opportunity to throw FUD at every article about Sun.

    Accusing others of not being able to spell... 'nuf said.

    Accusing others of not using technical arguments, when all Matt can comment on is that HP is the market leader, therefore better.

    Commenting on others eloquence? Eloquence could be measured in number of words used to make ones point. Others have commented on Matt's longwindedness. I just call him a blowhard.

  17. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    RE: Andy White

    "....This is an OEM deal and therefore generates a revenue for Sun which wasn't previously there - albeit probably a small one in reality. Eg in future you should be able to order your Proliant with Solaris pre-installed rather than doing it yourself...." Hit the nail on the head there, Andy, but missed a key fact. Yes, hp picks up the hardware sale, the integration services, and support contract, but ALSO keeps the customer locked up and well away from Sun. Ponytail gets a tiny OEM licence trickle. I bet the boys at Red Hat are laughing themselves sick at the Sunshiners now.

  18. Bill
    Happy

    Re: RE: Ahhh, there it is....

    You're so easy Matt... LOL

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    RE: The HP shill

    "..What you should realise is this is the end of the Galaxy team - who is going to want a poor copy of a real x64 range when they can have the market-leading x64 server range, associated management software, proven and integrated storage, and all from one vendor with one support contract?..."

    Isn't that funny. IDC says, that poor copy of x86 called Galaxy was the only one to grow a hopping 21.3% in revenue last quarter in a sinking economy, and gaining x86 market share,..their blade revenue increased more than 60%, outgrowing the overall market.

    And that market leading, proven x64 range tanked big time, and it would have tanked even more if not for a meager 4% growth in the blades.

    Now, that's called a FUDster HP-boy of gigantic proportion.

  20. Dale Ghent
    Heart

    Oh, give Matt a break...

    ... it's fairly obvious that he's suffering from a strong case cognitive dissonance. Allow him soak in it a bit.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    ... where hp-ux and Windows will still be the primary OSs

    And our man on the mountain has spoken and because his head is far up his (*) he no longer recognize when he is spouting cr@p -

    "But even then, Slowairs x86 will still be fifth in line at hp, where hp-ux and Windows will still be the primary OSs, Linux and OpenVMS will follow close behind, and Slowairs will lag by about ten years. Why ten years? Because that's about the position Linux was in with hp then that Slowairs is in now, and since then a lot of time and money has gone into testing and development to make Linux a tried and proven proposition across the whole hp range. Slowaris has just started, so even if hp can be bothered to put any effort in, it will still be years behind where Linux companies such as Red Hat and Novell stand on ProLiant."

    - two of your HP top 4 OS'es are dead - VMS and HP-UX has a limited base and is just been used by people who can not afford to migrate

    - I have left HP 4 years ago and they had no drive to sell Linux then, we couldn't get the Linux libraries in HPUX - your ten years is just b*ll!

    - I can run LINUX on the hp PA-RISC / Itanium platform?

    - Windows is an operating system?

    and lastly - HP has turned into Compaq - the killer of OS and CPU technologies. HP-UX will soon die, Itanium will folow and for VMS - hard to keep a good thing down but hp's been trying to kill it for years.

    "Sun has become a software only business" - HP has been that for years! If it was not for their software they would have been in the same position as Sun.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Take it easy

    Why HP is doing it? It is the customer base of EDS.

    EDS was the biggest SI buyer of SPARC systems from SUN,

    so Solaris on Proliant-x86 from HP could be a reasonable

    a price saving offer for customers who has a lot of SPARC

    systems. So, it is simple: HP is replacing SPARCS by x86.

    Why SUN is doing it for HP? Sun struggled in the last quarter,

    The picture for the next one is not clear, so SUN needs to

    come up with some image of success, which will help KKR and

    all other big invertors recover their money. Guess how?

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