Well, this comes as a bit of a surprise. Once bitter rivals in the world of enterprise computing, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft are now close friends. Just how close, you ask? Close enough that Sun has announced that it will start selling Windows-based servers. At a press conference, the two companies jointly announced that Sun has become a Windows Server Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and will sell x86 servers that will come bundled with Microsoft Windows Server 2003. According to Sun, the new servers will start shipping within the next 90 days.

Historically, Sun has focused on its own home-grown Solaris UNIX-based OS, in addition to Linux and Linux-based operating systems. “Sun is now a single source for today’s leading operating systems-Solaris and Windows-on the industry’s most innovative x64 systems and storage products,” said John Fowler, executive vice president at Sun.

For the full story:
– see this Ars Technica story (with hilarious chart)