IBM sharpens blades with Solaris

IBM will distribute Sun Microsystem's Solaris OS with some of its blade servers.

NEW YORK - IBM has agreed to sell Sun Microsystems's Solaris Operating System software to IBM's customers in a deal that pits the competing computer hardware makers against shared rival Hewlett-Packard.

Financial terms of the deal, were not disclosed.

IBM will distribute the software with certain of its blade server computers. Blade servers are compact servers that typically stand on end like books on a shelf. Sun lags Hewlett-Packard and International Business Machines in the blade server market.

Solaris is one of the main varieties of the Unix family of operating systems, known for their ability to safely and securely handle major computing tasks rather than for their ease of use.

- REUTERS