Who stands to gain the most now that the Solaris 10 operating system is being loaded onto HP ProLiant servers? Clearly this is a win not only for Sun users but the vast number of MySQL and Java developers out there.

Sun has been pushing to broaden its reach into the x86 market for some time, and the HP deal gives it more equal footing with Windows and the various Linux flavors. It also comes at a time when enterprises may start to hesitate shelling out big money for the high-performance SPARC and UltraSPARC processors.

But with a growing community of HP shops looking into Solaris, the opportunities for third-party developers, not to mention Solaris ISVs, could be substantial.

While the deal calls for HP to support Solaris at the same level it does Windows and RHEL, it should also be noted that the partnership does not extend to the Integrity server, which is strange considering the Integrity is a higher performance line aimed at mission-critical applications and could use a robust environment like Solaris.

Still, the ProLiant ain't half bad, and it does add to Sun's growing x86 base, which already includes servers from Dell, IBM and Fujitsu.