HP Targets Sun Solaris Base with Linux on ProLiant

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hewlett-Packard last week announced that it would be formally gunning for the installed base of Sparc and Solaris servers, the largest target in the Unix market. Instead of attacking this base with its own HP-UX RISC servers, which use either PA-RISC or Itanium processors, HP has decided to push Lintel server iron. Presumably, making the case for a Linux-on-Intel platform is the path of least resistance among CIOs who are loathe to spend money.

Under the Linux lifeline deal, announced last Friday, HP will give companies with Sparc/Solaris platforms a market basket of services for assessing what they need to migrate, as well as the actual porting and migration services to make a jump from Solaris to Linux on HP iron, which, according to HP, are valued at $25,000. No IT vendor actually gives list prices for services, and no one knows what people really pay for services, so it is hard to say if this is a good deal. It might be the kind of thing that HP has been giving away secretly for months or years to customers who were on the fence about jumping. What is clear is that HP has enough experience and confidence to formalize the deal and to tell people openly about it in the hopes of scaring up some Lintel server business.

HP needs to do something, since the midrange Unix business is faltering, according to chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina. And Sun, which has been losing market share in great handfuls as companies target its installed base, and as its own loyal customers shift from high-cost midframe gear to low-cost Solaris on X86 and Lintel servers. "Sun is really the low-hanging fruit for us today," says Brad Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of HP's Industry Standard Server unit, within its Enterprise Storage and Servers group. "We're seeing a lot of migration from Sparc/Solaris to ProLiant/Linux."

Sun would do well to counter HP with a similar deal to help customers migrate from HP 9000 servers to its own X86 boxes, and might even do the same for Unix customers at IBM and Silicon Graphics, if it was really serious about pushing its X86 boxes running either Solaris or Linux. Sun has to push back.

HP is not giving away its ProLiant servers as part of the Solaris-to-Linux migration program, so don't get too excited. However, customers who qualify (whatever that might mean) in the Americas region can get a free assessment of porting and migration costs associated with moving three applications from Solaris to Linux, and the actual services to port one of those applications, at no cost. The deal also includes the use of an Intel-based ProLiant server for 30 days for testing, and an assessment on how StorageWorks storage area networks can be woven into the Lintel servers to improve their functioning and to consolidate storage. The Solaris migration program will be available until December 31. Interested customers can go to www.hp.com/go/eclipse to sign up.

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