This summer, Sun Microsystems Inc. rolled out a program aimed at luring AlphaServer customers away from Hewlett-Packard Co. and its plans to standardize on Intel Corp.s 64-bit Itanium chip.
On Friday, HP struck back, offering its own migration program for Sun customers looking to move from the Solaris platform to Linux. HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., is offering Sun users up to $25,000 in application porting and redeployment costs to make the transfer.
HP officials said there has been a lot of interest from customers looking to make the switch, particularly since the company a few weeks ago started offering an indemnity program protecting their customers from any legal problems involving The SCO Groups patent infringement claims.
Though the cost of migration depends on the size of the company and the number of applications that need to be ported, “for the vast majority of customers, [$25,000] could mean the difference between sitting on the fence and jumping to the other side and saying, Lets do it,” said Martin Fink, vice president of Linux for HP, in Fort Collins, Colo.
Customers who take advantage of the program, which runs until Dec. 31, are offered a free assessment of migration needs for up to three applications and the free porting of one application. Customers also can use an Intel-based ProLiant server for 30 days to test the migration and a free HP StorageWorks storage-area network assessment.
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