IT companies Stratus and NEC are partnering together towards a mutual goal of more powerful, more useful x86 servers. Stratus primary selling point has been fault-tolerant x86 servers, designed for high uptime and minimized maintenance, using Windows and Linux as opposed to Unix. This hasn't been enough to sustain them, however, and now NEC will be taking over the hardware portion of the company. After a $9 Million investment into Stratus, NEC will be working with them to improve their line.

"Our agreements with NEC enable us to increase our focus on high-value, high-availability solutions services for the enterprise, increase investments in fault-tolerant software development, and continue providing industry-leading, fault-tolerant servers to customers and partners," said David Laurello, the CEO at Stratus. "
After this is complete, Stratus will no longer be dealing in hardware. The first NEC-Stratus hybrid will appear sometime late next year.