Sun, Microsoft Combine for Interop Center

Nobody would have believed this as little as two years ago, but Sun Microsystems and former bitter rival Microsoft March 10 announced that they have opened an "interoperability center" on Microsoft's campus for optimizing Windows applications to run on the Sun Fire x64 server storage machines.

In addition, Sun said that it now has made available its own "infrastructure solutions" to run on the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server, v2007.

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"We announced that we would do this as part of our last announcement with Microsoft back in September [2007]," Sun spokesperson Jackie DeCoster, a member of the interop team, told eWEEK. "This is the delivery on that 'promise.' "

The Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center will be available on a scheduled basis for Sun and Microsoft corporate customers to use as a testbed for running Microsoft data center applications on Sun's x64 servers and to work on tighter integration between the technologies.

One of the key objectives of the new center is to enable full virtualization capabilities of both Windows and Java as they work together—especially in data center management, a Microsoft spokesperson said.

The center also will collaborate with authorized Sun Solution Centers to support customers in running their own proof-of-concept testing.

Customers can minimize their risk and shorten time to deployment by simulating their own environment, with access to top architects from both Sun and Microsoft, a Microsoft spokesperson said.