IBM and Sun Microsystems have announced a joint marketing agreement to develop and sell IBM middleware for Sun's Unix-based systems.
As part of a widespread plan by IBM, called the Multi-Vendor Platforms initiative to ensure that IBM software runs on any platform, this alliance will enable IBM middleware to work on all of Sun's Unix platforms, officials say. The announcement was made at the IBM Software Expo '97.
In addition, Sun and IBM will work with resellers and developers to jointly market the IBM middleware-Sun hardware combination worldwide, officials say.
In another announcement, IBM said it has partnered with French systems integrator Cap Gemini Group to jointly market IBM middleware on non-IBM platforms.
Cap Gemini will offer IBM middleware on a variety of computing platforms, such as Microsoft's Windows NT and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX. Cap Gemini plans to set up competency centres throughout Europe which can offer support of IBM middleware on each of the platforms, according to IBM officials.
IBM also announced recently that it is upgrading MQSeries support for Digital Equipment's OpenVMS operating system, by making version 2.2 of that middleware product available for OpenVMS.