In a seemingly surprising twist, Sun Microsystems has announced that it will start building servers with its once-rival Microsoft Windows Operating system pre-installed. According to a statement by the company, they will start installing Windows Server 2003 on its servers that run Intel 64-bit processors and they will be available for purchase in about three months.

Due to the history Microsoft and Sun share of being bitter rivals this news comes as a surprise to many, although in reality Sun seems to have changed its strategy in the matter to a more opportunistic one by being the providers of an OS that often would end up on the servers either way. The move will also allow them to better service their customers by providing the OS installation service up front. Microsoft will also likely see advantages with the situation since they will have an even better hold on the server market in which Sun is very prominent.

Sun and Microsoft have also agreed on a couple other points that will provide mutual benefits for the companies and customers. One is to make each of their server virtualization technologies work well together which will allow the different operating systems to run on the same server making more solid and efficient environment. The other is to expand on the IPTV partnership and work towards a worldwide deployment of the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform.

Sun Press Release