Sun Collaborates With Microsoft

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced new and significant developments in its cross-platform virtualization initiatives with Microsoft Corp. Making it simple to integrate and interoperate with Sun's xVM portfolio, Sun has made key pieces of its virtualization software available in open source via the OpenxVM.org community http://www.openxvm.org.

As part of Sun's participation in Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program, the Sun xVM Server software, an open, flexible and datacenter-grade hypervisor, will be validated to work with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and prior versions. Microsoft and Sun customers will benefit from stronger interoperability and a joint support experience for virtual infrastructure deployments. In addition, Sun and Microsoft are working together to offer customers the Solaris(TM) Operating System (OS) as a certified guest on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Additionally, Sun is expanding its support for Microsoft technologies by providing Sun Ray(TM) thin client customers the ability to access Windows as a guest OS running on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

“Sun is committed to offering interoperability with Microsoft's products, so that our mutual customers can run their choice of operating systems on any virtualization platform on Windows-compatible x64 servers from Sun,” said Steve Wilson, vice president of xVM, Sun Microsystems. “From the desktop to the datacenter, Sun offers a broad portfolio of products ideal for virtualization. By collaborating with Microsoft, we are delivering on the promise of cross-platform virtualization and most importantly, helping customers reap the full benefits of their virtualization investments.”

Sun Microsystems Inc.