Microsoft and Novell partnership grows

22 April 2008

Microsoft and Novell are to focus joint efforts on converting unsupported Linux users to supported SUSE Linux Enterprise, with a particular emphasis on the Chinese market. This is a result of increasing customer demand in the region for their business model solution, which is designed to build a bridge between open source and proprietary software. The focus is to provide interoperability for organisations operating mixed-source IT environments.

Companies to receive Microsoft certificates for three-year support subscriptions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell include: the People’s Insurance Company of China Group (PICC), The Dairy Farm Company (Dairy Farm) and Dawning Information Industry (Dawning).

It’s very encouraging to see that our business and technical collaboration continues to resonate with customers around the globe,

,  “It’s very encouraging to see that our business and technical collaboration continues to resonate with customers around the globe,” said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell. “Both Novell and Microsoft are committed to furthering this alliance, and we couldn’t be happier with the results to date. PICC, Dairy Farm and Dawning exemplify the benefits our strengthened alliance provides for the international IT community.”

“We recognise that our customers want to use Microsoft products in heterogeneous environments, and therefore we are pleased to offer this option to meet customer needs in one of the leading global markets,” said Ya-Qin Zang, Microsoft corporate vice president and chairman of Microsoft China. “We are very pleased with the initial response in the Chinese market to our joint offerings for intellectual property peace of mind and technology interoperability in such areas as virtualisation and high-performance computing.”

Microsoft and Novell’s collaboration in China will focus on joint marketing and training efforts that tap into two emerging areas of interoperability demand: high-performance computing (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server running in a dual-boot configuration) and virtualisation (cross-platform virtualisation solutions featuring Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Xen technology). This will include hosting round-table discussions with local chief information officers in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, running a virtualisation customer pilot, and conducting technology workshops to assist the conversion from unsupported Linux to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

“We are very pleased with the original approach by Microsoft and Novell to address our concerns about deploying and managing a complex high-performance computing infrastructure across two platforms. It is essential for our future competitiveness and success that we can simplify with such solutions and look forward to further utilising the standards-based systems management technologies being developed by both companies,” said Nie Hua, vice president of Dawning. “We fully understand the concerns surrounding intellectual property rights and feel reassured that these issues have been addressed by our vendors.”

More information about the Microsoft and Novell agreement can be found on the dedicated site.