The two archrivals in hardware business, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems announced a new multiyear partnership agreement on Wednesday. Under the new partnership agreement, HP will sell and support Sun's Solaris operating system on its ProLiant line of server and blade system computers.

According to the agreement, HP will provide technical support to Sun Microsystems and sell Solaris 10 operating system of Sun Microsystems on its best-selling ProLiant servers as well as its blade servers. Additionally, HP has agreed to sell both one- and three-year standard and premium subscriptions for Solaris.

The new partnership agreement benefits both the companies. It gives HP another operating system to offer its customers, while it gives Sun Microsystems a wider distribution network for its software. The agreement has been supported by top executives from both companies.

In a webcast, Mark Potter, a senior vice president at HP, said, "Now there's a single point of purchase, contact and, most important, accountability through HP."

In a video presentation, the president and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, "Both Mark Hurd [HP chairman, president and CEO] and I have heard directly from customers across the world that they are interested in Solaris, running it on HP hardware, along with getting the legendary support, not only from HP organizations [but also from] the innovation they've come to expect from the Solaris organization."

Schwartz said, "This creates a compelling alternative for customers that are looking for more efficiency, more performance and ultimately, lower costs."

John Fowler, a Sun executive vice president, said, "We're both looking to expand our footprint. HP reaches markets not well covered by Sun, so this expands our capability of selling Solaris."