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The number of deals has exceeded initial sales goal forecasts, according to Microsoft.Microsoft and Novell are using the one-year anniversary of their interoperability agreement to tout the increasing number of enterprise customers who are signing up because of the benefits offered through the collaboration.
The two companies announced Nov. 8 that Microsoft will give 30 new customers three-year priority support subscriptions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell. These agreements were negotiated over the past quarter, and they bring the number of such deals to about 60 that have taken place over the past year.
All of the deals involved non-Novell Linux customers moving over as a result of the technology bridge and intellectual property assurances, Susan Hauser, general manager of strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft, told eWEEK.
"This number has exceeded our initial forecasts in terms of our sales goals, and covers customers from the U.S., Europe and Japan, which indicates the global support we have been able to achieve through our collaboration and that we have delivered on the technology bridge and the interoperability updates we promised customers," Hauser said.
Read more here about how Microsoft and Novell made peace over Linux.
Linux and Windows were the dominant platforms for these companies in their data centers, many of which were undergoing transformation and consolidation and were looking to technologies like virtualization, said Susan Heystee, Novell vice president and general manager of global strategic alliances.
"So, being able to move forward with Linux that works with Windows, as well as leverage the partnership of having Microsoft and Novell at the table with them, has been very powerful," she said.
Retail giant Costco, Southwest Airlines, and the City of Los Angeles are among the latest converts, as are a number of companies in Europe and Asia.
Another, CHRISTUS Health, a U.S. Catholic health care provider with more than 40 hospitals in its network, looked to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to help it improve the overall availability for key infrastructure and mission-critical applications, as well as to reduce the total cost of ownership, said CIO George Conklin.
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"The agreement between Novell and Microsoft makes this an even more appealing decision. By taking advantage of the interoperability between our Windows and Linux environments, were able to significantly streamline the management of our infrastructure," he said.
Engineers in the Microsoft-Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass. are running automated tests to ensure the interoperability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Windows Server virtualization and Windows Server 2008 with Xen.
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