Dell agrees to work with Microsoft and Novell that cooperate to unite their operation systems' users.
This unusual alliance of Microsoft and Novell was announced in November, and as they say, it is to give corporate customers a chance to license Windows operating system as part of a package that includes maintenance and support for Novell's Suse Linux platform.
Novell makes money mainly from operation system support, meanwhile Microsoft sells copyrighted operation systems. But Microsoft's earning were greatly increasing. Microsoft promised not to file patent-rights over its technology blended with Suse Linux, to make customers be willing to choose Novell's open-source platform.
So Dell agrees to purchase and redistribute Suse Enterprise Linux subscription certificates. Also Dell aims to court existing Linux users who don't subscribe to Linux support services from any of the companies.
"Dell is the first major systems provider to align with Microsoft and Novell in this collaboration, and we intend to lead in this space," Rick Becker, a vice president in Dell's product group, said
"Dell's embrace of the Novell-Microsoft agreement reflects a growing market reality: The two platforms of the future are Linux and Windows, and customers want them to work better together," said Susan Heystee, vice president and general manager of global strategic alliances at Novell.
Despite of this new partnership, Dell continues working with Red Hat. It was talked that Microsoft entered this alliance to win Red Hat's customer, but Microsoft said that it could do the same with Red Hat, if they were willing.
"From Novell's perspective, I think it's fair to say that having Dell on board does give the whole relationship (with Microsoft) more credibility," said analyst Al Gillen, research vice president at IDC. "At some level, it puts a certain amount of subtle, but slight, pressure on Red Hat," Gillen added. "You go to Dell to buy a Linux server, and you have a choice of having one which has indemnification through this arrangement or you have a choice of buying one which is indemnified by Red Hat directly, which is a different value proposition."
By Ruzan Harutyunyan for HULIQ
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