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Nov. 12, 2009

Overall, a controversial deal done three years ago between Novell and Microsoft that included co-marketing arrangements as well as patent protection from Microsoft for Linux users is still successful, say the two companies.

Microsoft, the world's largest proprietary software vendor, Novell, one of the largest open-source vendor and Linux system integrator.

Each company now has about 480 joint customers running both Windows Server 2003 and Novell's SUSE Enterprise Linux side-by-side in data centers, the companies said at a press conference in Seattle on Nov. 9. That's up from 100 last year, and the 300 it announced last June.

In addition to the $240 million in vouchers it first purchased, Microsoft agreed last August to buy up to an additional $100 million in vouchers. Ted MacLean, general manager for strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft, said it was too early for Microsoft to commit to buying more, however.

For its part, Novell also claims about twenty customers that are moving from using Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS to SUSE, for which it is temporarily providing support until they complete the transition to Novell's platform, Heystee said.

For Novell, the alliance has been a particular boon. Revenue related to SUSE Enterprise Linux is up fifty percent from 2008's levels, said Susan Heystee, vice president and general manager for global strategic alliances at Novell. Most of that comes from $225 million in SUSE support vouchers purchased and sold by Microsoft to customers running both Windows Server 2003/2008 and SUSE Linux.

To further broaden its base, Novell is even considering adding support for Oracle Unbreakable Linux, Heystee said. "We're looking at it, since we've gotten quite a few requests from people having support issues" with Oracle, she said. "You do see a trend there, of customers wanting to work with the manufacturer of the Linux distribution itself."

Heystee added that customers see only the upsides of the alliance, which on the technical side involves making SUSE Linux the perfect guest on Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V virtualization, and easier to manage for Windows administrators.

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Source: Novell.

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