Virtualization News Desk

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Sun and Microsoft, which have been toying with interoperability for years now with not that much to show for it, are going to open a full-fledged Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center in Redmond to optimize Microsoft applications on Sun's x86 storage and servers.

This after Sun has had a smaller presence on the campus for the last three years in Microsoft's Enterprise Engineering Center.

At least nobody drowned in the thaw.

The lever of course was Sun's decision last year to sell Windows Server.

The new center's charter includes work on interoperability in application areas like cross-platform Hyper-V/xVM virtualization, systems management and identity and certifying Java EE and SE and the fateful Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on Microsoft operating environments and apps.

Seems that the companies have created a basis for tighter integration between Java Enterprise Edition, Microsoft's rival .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Communication Foundation in Sun's Web Services interoperability technologies, a k a Project Tango.

And Sun wants its Sun Ray thin client to be a first-class virtual desktop for the Windows environment and support Windows technologies.

As part of this latest cozying up, the pair announced the availability of the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, which is supposed to reduce enterprise e-mail TCO by up to 70% over three years.

Seems there are now pre-tested Sun system and storage configurations that are supposed to ease customer migration to Exchange Server 2007, words that seem unnatural in Sun's mouth, offering up to an 85% savings in rack space, power and cooling.

The center will naturally also serve as a showcase for this new détente and a place for customers to run their own proofs-of-concept.