San Francisco, Aug 02: Sun Microsystems has agreed to resell and support closely held German software firm SuSE's version of the Linux operating system, the leading variant in Europe, the companies said on Friday. The agreement -- which follows a similar one in May between Sun, the maker of network computers, and Red Hat Inc., the leading Linux vendor in the United States -- shores up Sun's Linux strategy, analysts said..
Analysts have said Sun has been inconsistent in how it has approached Linux, which they say could threaten Sun's own proprietary version of Unix called Solaris. Sun's powerful servers using Solaris and its UltraSparc processors are widely used by telecommunications and financial services companies.
Sun recently decided to stop selling its own version of Linux and adopted the model of distributing Red Hat and, now, SuSE -- in large part due to pressure from customers, said Stacey Quandt, an analyst at Giga Information Group, a unit of Forrester Research.
"Sun has been one of the last to form a relationship with SuSE," Quandt said. "It's almost like they were hoping they didn't have to do this to some degree, but the market was demanding it."
Linux is gaining acceptance among corporations because it is cheaper in many cases than servers using Microsoft Corp.'s operating system and proprietary versions of Unix used by Sun and others.
Bureau Report