Intel and Sun passed a milestone on Jan. 22. It's been one year since the two companies struck their strategic alliance that builds on the Sun* Solaris* operating system and Intel® Xeon® processors. Since then, optimized software and new systems have flourished. The list of software advancements includes: Solaris OS and Sun* Studio* optimization for Intel® architecture; Solaris adoption of key Intel architecture features, including virtualization, demand based switching and power management; and Sun* xVM* Server optimization for Intel® Virtualization Technology. Xeon-based hardware launching this year includes the Sun Fire* X4150 and Sun Fire X4450 rackmount servers, Sun Blade* X6250 server module, and Sun Ultra* 24 Workstation. And along the way, the alliance scored world record benchmarks with the Sun Fire X4450 and Sun Blade X6250 servers.