HP and BEA make marketing pact

Hewlett-Packard and software company BEA Systems have come to an agreement for an expanded marketing pact.

BEA wants to move away from a sales reliance on Sun Microsystems, whose underlying sales have been falling.

It is understood that almost 60% of BEA's software and solutions sales were to customers that used operating systems and platforms supplied by Sun.

The chief opportunity is for BEA to expand its market footprint across H-P higher end computers that run Unix as well as the low-cost Linux operating system. In addition the opportunity exists for BEA to leverage H-P's strengths to compete and win against IBM platform based deals.

It is expected that H-P will cease the operations of its Bluestone group, which it acquired in 1999 to compete with BEA. Circa 200 customers of Bluestone will be converted to BEA's software.

The initial business structure is that of 'an expanded marketing pact' which will allow joint targeting of strategic, larger accounts.