The EGA was formed in 2004 by EMC Corp., Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., NEC Corp., Network Appliance Inc., Oracle Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., among others, with the goal of developing standards and specifications designed to make it easier to deploy vendor products in a grid environment.

The GGF was founded in 1989 and includes many members from academia, as well as developers and vendors. It has focused on developing grid-related standards.

The two groups issued a statement yesterday that said, "With a common interest in accelerating the pervasive adoption of grids worldwide, the EGA and GGF are well aligned to join together. Today, we signed a letter of intent to merge and are now entering into the transition phase, which is expected to result in a definitive merger in the summer of 2006."

IBM was notably absent from the San Ramon, Calif.-based EGA at its creation but is represented in the Lemont, Ill.-based GGF.

The merger will have little direct impact on users, at least in the short term, said one analyst.