BOSTON -- IBM and HP are striking up new open source stack initiatives, as the two big Linux systems and services vendors continue to evolve their respective open source offerings.

HP's Open Source Integrated Portfolio (OSIP) is comprised of HP Open Source Middleware Stacks (OSMS), which is a new service and open source product offering for Windows and HP-UX, as well as traditional Linux deployments.

Jeffrey Wade, worldwide marketing manager of open source and Linux at HP, told internetnews.com that OSIP is a new approach for how HP brings open source services and infrastructure together under one framework.

At the core of OSMS are HP's open source building blocks, which are core open source components from which the stacks are built. Initially those building blocks include Symas's distribution of OpenLDAP, as well as JBoss's Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS) and JBoss Application Server.

Beyond the building blocks, HP also has a new component called Open Source Blueprints that enable end users to build and deploy their own HP-supported middleware stack with help and guidance from HP.

IBM is also jumping into the open source stack business for SMBs with little help from Novell.

The Integrated Stack for Linux includes IBM servers, Novell Linux, IBM's DB2 Express-C database and its Gluecode Geronimo application server WebSphere Application Server Community Edition.

It also includes an Integrated File and Print stack offering that is focused on file and print workloads.

"It's first at this point in time," Scott Handy, vice president of Linux and Open Source at IBM, told internetnews.com. "We haven't had an integrated stack like this before."

The "magic sauce," as Handy puts it, is that the new integrated stack addresses the needs of SMB customers who are thinking about installing Linux within a Windows environment.

As part of the stack, IBM is including Avnet's Centeris likewise application. Handy explained that Centeris likewise makes a Linux server appear to a Windows System admin as another windows server. So a systems administrator can administer a Linux server with a Windows system admin console.

"We don't have to go into an SMB account and retrain a Windows system admin; that's a huge benefit of this approach and this solution," Handy said.