Sun is looking to burnish its support credentials by offering to look after other vendors’ hardware as long it is running its Solaris OS.

The vendor is pitching its SunSpectrum Enterprise Service plan at customers looking for a single support contract for their Sun hardware and software. In fact, it is so all-encompassing, that it will even support support customers who like Solaris but, for some strange reason, run it on Intel and AMD powered kit as well as Sun’s own boxes.

In fact, the vendor coughed to the fact that three quarters of Solaris 10 deployments are on non-Sun hardware. But, said Sun, by giving it responsibility for other vendors’ kit, customers would have “one throat to choke”.

Other options under the plan include onsite Sun staff, and parts inventory, as well as remote monitoring. A patch service, and environmental assessment service is also on offer.

Analysts at Ovum said the plan could throw Linux distributors onto the back foot, as they cannot combine multivendor hardware support and OS support without the help of box vendors. At the same time, said Ovum, HP, IBM, and Dell offered single contract Linux support, but only on their own boxes.®