Dell South Africa announced Linux as the company`s third global, strategic operating system to power its customers` front-end Internet infrastructures. The Linux operating system joins Microsoft`s Windows and Novell`s NetWare as one of three strategic operating systems Dell supports and factory installs world-wide.
The announcement forms part of Dell and Red Hat`s One Source Alliance, a global initiative intended to speed commercial acceptance and respond to the growing demand for Linux-based systems for the Internet infrastructure.
Sean Wainer, enterprise product marketing manager for Dell South Africa, says the addition of Linux as a strategic operating system is expected to help Dell capture an increased percentage of spending associated with building an infrastructure for the new Internet economy. "This reflects Dell`s commitment to Linux as a future operating system in applications where UNIX is currently widely deployed."
The Red Hat and Dell combination offers customers a complete solution for Linux development and deployment. Due to the fact that Dell does not have a proprietary, in-house UNIX offering it is able to align development resources around Linux and deliver these Linux solutions to its customers.
"Our portfolio of Dell PowerEdge and PowerApp servers based on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Novell NetWare will allow us to continue our market share growth in the Internet infrastructure and address more than 80 percent of the total server operating environments by 2003," continues Wainer.
While Dell`s plans for Linux will initially be on Intel`s IA-32 based architecture, the company is collaborating with Red Hat to facilitate the migration of Linux into higher-end systems based on Intel`s IA-64 architecture.
"As the operating system continues its rapid maturation in the areas of availability, reliability, manageability and security, we expect it to grow from its current strength in the Internet infrastructure to mission-critical data centre and high performance computing applications currently dominated by UNIX systems," concludes Wainer.
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