Dell moves closer to Linux with SuSE deal

Dell and Novell have reached an agreement that will see Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 receive certification on a selection of Dell PowerEdge servers.

The companies said the deal would give global customers more choice for fully supported Linux platform deployments.

Under the terms of the agreement customers worldwide will be able to purchase Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 with single- and dual-processor Dell PowerEdge 1850, 2800 and 2850 servers in the fourth quarter.

The operating system will be bundled with the server at the time of purchase. A joint service agreement between the two companies provides customers with the same levels of support for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 as for all other operating systems, as the distro will be supported by Dell Services through a collaborative support agreement with Novell technical support.

A server annual maintenance subscription package will cost $175 per single CPU and $269 for a dual-CPU subscription.

"Today's announcement marks an important expansion of Dell and Novell's longstanding industry relationship," said Al Gillen, research director of system software at IDC.

"It provides Dell Linux customers more platform choice for fully supported operating systems, and gives Novell customers a new option for deploying Linux in their IT infrastructure."

Linda York, vice president of global alliances marketing in Dell's product group, said: "This is another great example of Dell and Novell's ability to work together to move standards-based computing further into the data centre."

Novell said its acquisition of SuSE Linux in January 2004 set the stage for expanding its longstanding relationship with Dell.

"Existing Novell customers get new options for their future hardware platform needs, while new customers gain a top-notch enterprise Linux offering on one of the most robust server platforms in the world, backed by Novell's global ecosystem of enterprise-level Linux services," added David Patrick, vice president of Linux, open source and platform services at Novell.