Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have announced two milestones in their ongoing alliance: the official opening of the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center and the availability of the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

Objectives of the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center include the optimisation of Microsoft applications on Sun x64 systems and storage, and promotion of full interoperability in application areas such as virtualisation, Java, systems management and identity.

The centre will also collaborate with authorised Sun Solution Centers to support customers in running their own proof-of-concept testing.

This will allow customers to minimise risk and shorten time to deployment by simulating their own environment, with access to top architects from Sun and Microsoft.

"The centre will provide a setting for hands-on testing and tuning of Sun/Microsoft solutions, and will help our joint customers achieve outstanding performance results for their standardised and home grown solutions," said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing at Microsoft.

"It is consistent with our recently announced interoperability principles which guide steps that we are taking to enhance interoperability in the marketplace for the benefit of customers."

One of the first results of the collaboration is the availability of the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

The platform is designed to help enable enterprise customers to better manage email growth and optimise Exchange Server 2007.

Pre-tested end-to-date system and storage configurations allow customers to migrate to Exchange Server 2007, achieving up to 85 per cent savings in rack space, power and cooling, and reducing total cost of ownership for email by up to 70 per cent over three years, the companies said.

The centre expands Sun's three-year presence on Microsoft's main campus, focused on testing customer scenarios on Sun systems in the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center.

Microsoft and Sun have collaborated on a number of interoperability areas including web services, identity management, thin clients, systems management and Windows Server engineering.