Open source and cloud computing might be the ultimate goals of the alliance.
The purchase of Sun Microsystems by IBM could generate the creation of a competitor in servers. However, according to analysts believe this acquisition would be another major objective.
According to analysts estimate, bringing the two companies would represent an opportunity to gain a competitive [...]

A dedicated virtual server allows partitioning of a dedicated server “physical” into several independent entities known as “virtual servers” which each have the characteristics of a dedicated server. Each virtual server can run a different operating system and restart independently. it is therefore possible to consolidate several virtual servers on one physical server, while keeping [...]