GOVERNMENT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. said on Friday that it would pay customers of struggling competitor Sun Microsystems Inc. SUNW.O $25,000 to switch to HP computers that run the Linux operating system. Palo Alto-based HP's offer intensifies an already tough pricing environment for large computer servers. Linux is software code that is free and can be copied or modified and has become popular among those companies that have been trying to lower costs. Earlier this week Sun Microsystems announced that it would miss its quarterly financial targets in part because of tough pricing and Wall Street analysts have called for the company to cut jobs and change its strategy.