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SAN FRANCISCO – Erstwhile bitter rivals Dell and Sun Microsystems are set to announce that Sun’s Solaris and OpenSolaris operating systems will be supported in all of Dell’s servers.

Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell and Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz plan to make the announcement during a joint appearance at the Oracle OpenWorld 2007 conference here today.

The agreement means that customers buying a Dell rack or blade server will get the option of installing Solaris or OpenSolaris. Customers picking one of these operating systems will get support from Sun’s online support organization through Dell, making the experience seamless for the customer.

This marks the first time that Sun’s home-grown, Unix-based operating systems will be sanctioned for use in any kind of Dell hardware. The two companies have been rivals in the server business for more than 12 years.

The new agreement means that Dell will test, certify, and optimize Solaris and OpenSolaris on its rack and blade servers and offer them as one of several choices in the overall Dell software menu.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Dell to Offer Sun’s Solaris, OpenSolaris in Servers