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'With this agreement with Sun, we anticipate significant cost and synergy savings over the next few years due to reduced support and deployment costs,' said Detlef Schultz, global supply chain director at Vodafone.'

The deal will include corporate and customer network services delivered over Sun's Java Enterprise System (JES) and the Java Desktop System client on desktops. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. Vodafone was already a heavy user

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of Sun's Java System Directory Identity technology. But with some 60,000 employees worldwide, the bill for internal use alone of JES would be $600,000 per year based on Sun's $100 per seat per year pricing model in the US and assuming no volume discounts.

'The most demanding large-scale organisations are trying to simplify the integration of their infrastructure and cut costs to deliver more services to their customers over the network,' said John Loiacono, executive VP of Software, at Sun. 'Vodafone represents the future - one in which all businesses operate shared service environments, bringing together communities and employees, partners and suppliers, with a common infrastructure, a common technology model, and a common pursuit of simplicity and business opportunity.'

The deal also marks another step in the march of Linux on the desktop. With a major corporation such as Vodafone rolling out Sun's SUSE-based Java desktop, it is the biggest deployment since June, when Allied Irish Bank signed a deal to use JDS across 7,500 seats.