Sun Microsystems has struck a deal with Sybase to offer its customers Sybase support for the Solaris operating system on the x64 platform.

The firms will collaborate on development and performance engineering activities to help customers migrate systems to Sybase running on Intel-based Solaris servers.

The deal will see Sybase provide support for x64 Solaris in its Adaptive Server Enterprise, Sybase IQ and Adaptive Server Anywhere data management offerings.

Herman Li, vice president of engineering at Sybase, said that extending the firm's relationship with Sun has been prompted, at least in part, by enterprise customers moving to low-cost x86 servers.

"A number of our financial services, government and healthcare customers have expressed interest in a move to x64," he said.

Stephen Borcich, vice president of partner marketing at Sun, said that the alliance would appeal particularly to customers in the financial services sector because it will allow them to run uniform systems across both Sparc and x86 servers.

Products supporting x86 Solaris are expected to be available from Sybase in the final quarter of this year.