Yesterday Oracle announced that both HP and Dell would certify Solaris on their respective lines of x86 servers, and that Oracle would offer support for Solaris on these systems.

Except for IBM, who was conspicuously missing from the announcement, it's hard to find any losers in this arrangement. HP and Dell customers get the assurance of enterprise support for an OS that they have a long track record with on x86 servers from two of the leading server vendors. Oracle gets a huge potential increase in potential Solaris footprint as Solaris is now available and supported on the leading server platforms, with accompanying opportunities for support revenue and cross-selling of other Oracle products.

All in all, an expected but still welcome development in the Oracle/Sun saga, and one that should make a lot of people happy.

Does anyone have thoughts on IBM's absence?