Intel and Sun form a very powerful partnership (read complete article):

Intel® Xeon® processors power Sun’s hardware and software solutions

Sun will deliver a comprehensive set of Intel® technology-based systems, with plans for single, dual, and multi-processor based enterprise servers, telecommunication servers and workstations supporting Solaris*, Windows* and Linux. Sun intends to announce the first Intel Xeon processor-based systems in the first half of 2007. With the Intel and Sun Microsystems strategic alliance, IT customers can deploy the Solaris OS - an enterprise class, mission critical UNIX Operating System - on Intel Xeon processor-based servers. The scope spans Solaris, Java, Intel Xeon processors and other Intel enterprise-class technologies over a multi-year period collaboration agreement.

Solaris* optimized for Intel® Xeon® processors

In the coming months, Sun and Intel will combine the breakthrough performance, scalability, and reliability of the Quad-Core and Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor-based server systems with the Sun Solaris OS. The Solaris platform is supported by over 2000 ISVs on hundreds of platforms that deliver the scaling, functionality and security capable of handling explosive network growth. This combination will provide IT with enhanced OS performance and reliability.

Sun will launch the first of these systems for dual and quad-core processor-based servers in the first half of 2007. In addition, Sun and Intel will extend the collaboration to greater than four Intel Xeon processor scale-up systems and optimize those systems for the mission critical, enterprise class Solaris OS.

This is a great news. Partnerships will help both parties. The next 3 years is going to be some huge shake ups in the server marketplace. With virtualization allowing for software and hardware to mix easily, in a true open market, the best will survive. When a company can buy a server from sun, cpu’s from Intel, OS from Red hat, and load on VMware virtualization software, then load Virtual Machines from any provider, linux, windows, bsd, maybe even Apple.

On a side note:

Wondering about what inside information means, read this sentence and wonder  (read complete article):

Sun Microsystems has had one partner in the low-end server market–Advanced Micro Devices. That appears to be changing, according to a research note from Bank of America Securities analyst Sumit Dhanda.

In the report published Friday, Dhanda writes:

“Our checks indicate  that  Sun  Microsystems will  begin  using  Intel’s  Xeon processors (previously dubbed Woodcrest) for its fast  growing  x86/x64  server product lines. Having used exclusively AMD’s Opteron solution for the past 2-3 years due to its  performance  advantage  vs. older Intel’s Xeon products, we believe that Sun has put the wheels in  motion to rekindle the relationship it once had with Intel on x86 servers.”

Notice the bold word: Our Checks, now the guy works at Bank of America, sounds like he is watching who Sun is paying. This sounds like a scary idea, If I was a massive corporation, I wouldn’t want some stock broker researching my company based on where the money flow goes before announced in corporate reports. This isn’t a big deal for this deal, but with a company like Apple, who is very secretive about their wheeling and dealings, imagine if the checks they sent to Intel got announced well before Apple even had a working prototype. This is a scary idea for stock traders who are associated with BOA.