This program is intended to help customers make cost-effective technology investments today with immediate positive impact and lasting value as the current economic cycle runs its course.

"Justifying any IT investment to management is tough in these economic times, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), or for remote sites that lack the IT resources of the corporate data center," said Allan Jennings, Stratus senior vice president, product & solutions development. "The We Feel Your Pain program gives customers a quick payback path to the cost-saving benefits of virtualisation when they need them most, an investment industry analysts are calling a no-brainer."

For distributed sites at the edge of corporate networks, or medium-size enterprises seeking to leverage existing infrastructure, the server consolidation benefits of virtualisation are compelling. Stratus ftServer systems with free VMware Infrastructure Foundation software - typically selling for $995 - provide a continuously available computing platform with the operational simplicity of a standalone x86 server. Unlike proposed products from competitors, the Stratus offering is available immediately, providing support for both Windows and Linux applications on a single server and without infrastructure complexity. The Stratus symmetrical multi processing (SMP) fault-tolerant architecture supports up to eight processor cores and is designed to prevent downtime and data loss, making it an ideal platform for multiple virtual machines with mixed operating environments.

"VMware and Stratus have a history of working together to deliver feature-rich solutions that simplify customers' computing environments and deliver fast ROI," said Bogomil Balkansky, VMware vice president, product marketing, server business unit. "This new program is another step forward in providing customers the ability to benefit from the combination of Stratus' continuous availability platform with VMware virtualisation's ability to drive down total cost of ownership."

In a recent survey conducted for Stratus by ITIC Corporation, 48 per cent of 300 respondents said at least half of their companies' applications require high availability, with 96 percent saying that mitigating planned and unplanned downtime are top priorities with regard to application availability. "The need for application availability is high and escalating but, in the face of tough economic times, 35 percent of IT budgets are declining and 29 per cent are flat," said ITIC Principal Laura DiDio. "This is a time for vendors to get creative and help IT management wring every scintilla of ROI from each dollar spent. Opening the door to server virtualization can provide exceptional customer value."

VMware Infrastructure Foundation includes the industry-leading VMware ESX hypervisor and one VMware VirtualCenter agent licence for virtual infrastructure management. Delivering the Foundation edition at no cost on an Intel-based ftServer system with 99.9999 percent uptime creates an infrastructure investment with unmatched reliability, flexibility and availability that can be easily upgraded. As a VMware global partner and reseller, Stratus also offers the Standard and Enterprise editions of VMware Infrastructure with features such as VMotion or VMware HA; only the Foundation edition is offered under this limited-time offer that ends June 28th. (Click here for a comparison of the components included in the three different versions of VMware software: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vi_pricing3.pdf.)

For companies that require less than six nines uptime, Stratus offers its Avance High Availability software, which delivers 99.99% uptime for both Windows and Linux applications, runs on industry-standard x86 servers, and has virtualization technology embedded in the solution. This cost-effective software solution is also available for immediate delivery.

About Stratus Technologies
Stratus Technologies focuses exclusively on helping its customers keep critical business operations online without interruption. Business continuity requires resiliency and superior availability throughout the IT infrastructure, including virtual environments. Stratus delivers a range of solutions that includes software-based high availability, fault-tolerant servers, availability consulting and assessment, and remote systems management services. Based on its 29 years of expertise in product and services technology for total availability, Stratus is a trusted solutions provider to customers in manufacturing, health care, financial services, public safety, transportation & logistics, and other industries.