Microsoft attempted to put pay to any scepticism over its partnership with Novell with the revelation that Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies have become some of its first Linux customers.

Under three separate customer agreements, Microsoft will deliver Suse Linux Enterprise subscription certificates, allowing these customers to take advantage of the Microsoft and Novell agreement.

Deutsche Bank was already a significant user of both Novell and Microsoft products and anticipates that the collaboration would improve interoperability among various systems. "Employing both Windows and Linux in our company always seemed the right thing to do, but making the systems work together would require a significant amount of time and resources," said Clemens Jochum, chief technology officer of Deutsche Bank.

In early November, Novell and Microsoft announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support improved interoperability and new virtualization capabilities between Microsoft and Novell products.

"For us, interoperability is key," said Tom Sanzone, chief information officer at Credit Suisse.

"We see both Windows and Suse Linux as strategic platforms going forward, and we're very pleased to see Microsoft and Novell, who support these platforms, step up and work on interoperability. This is a great model because it provides a bridge to connect the open source and proprietary software to benefit customers."