IBM and Red Hat aim to eclipse Solaris

IBM and Linux vendor Red Hat have teamed up to entice users to switch from Solaris to Linux.

The two companies promised to provide a free migration assessment to determine whether a user is able to switch. If they decide to move forward, IBM will offer its special Migration Factory Services for a fee.

Big Blue claims to have migrated over 500 systems from HP/UX and Solaris to IBM's AIX operating system since early 2004. It also said that roughly 25 per cent of the Linux deals that the company has completed involved moving away from a Solaris environment.

"The number one issue is that customers don't know just how easy Unix-to-Linux migration is, which is why we are offering to cover the cost of the initial assessment for qualified customers," said Scott Handy, worldwide vice president for Linux at IBM.

He claimed that users are more likely to start a migration project once they see the benefits of moving their data centres.

As part of the programme IBM lined up 22 software vendors in the financial services sector that will release versions of their software for Linux. These companies have traditionally been large Solaris customers, but have shown an eagerness to switch to Linux, according to IBM.

The programme comes on the eve of the official launch of the open source version of Solaris. Sun has previously promised to release a 'buildable' version of the source code under the Common Development and Distribution Licence before 30 June.

Sun positions the software as a direct competitor to Linux, claiming that many organisations like the idea of an open source operating system but feel that the Linux General Public Licence is too restrictive to allow broad use in commercial environments.