Sun Microsystems has signed a global alliance agreement with Red Hat to distribute the latter's Enterprise Linux operating system.
As part of the agreement, Red Hat will distribute Sun's Java Virtual Machine with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, while Sun will sell and support all x86 versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
These include Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, Enterprise Linux ES and Enterprise Linux WS.
"The combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Sun's x86 systems affirms our commitment to the open source community," said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of software at Sun.
"This relationship is the first of many efforts we expect to drive together with Red Hat on the Linux and Java front."
In collaboration with Red Hat, Sun will provide global services and support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
It will also support customers in heterogeneous environments, including Solaris, Solaris x86 Platform Edition and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and will continue to support all existing Sun Linux customers.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions will be available from Sun by summer 2003, and will be supported on the recently announced x86-based Sun Fire V60x and V65x systems.
Future x86 products from Sun will also support Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
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