Johannesburg, 25 Jun 2003
Dell, HP and IBM will make Novell`s Linux offerings available to their enterprise customers, Novell announced in SA today. The beta of Novell`s new Linux offering, Nterprise Linux Services, will be available on select HP ProLiant servers as early as July.
This follows the announcements made at Novell`s Brainshare event earlier this year, when Novell said the next version of its NetWare software will ship with either a NetWare or Linux kernel. Novell also introduced a new Linux certification, Certified Linux Engineer.
"Linux has become a greater and more important platform in the eyes of corporate customers," said Novell EMEA press liaison officer, Peter Joseph, during a press teleconference this morning. "Today`s announcements reflect the views of customers, as well as of independent hardware vendors, partners and the analyst community."
Joseph cited a Forrester Research report, "The Linux Tipping Point", which shows the major barriers to Linux uptake in the enterprise are concerns about the lack of support, maturity of the Linux platform, as well as security, applications and skills issues.
"These announcements address the majority of these concerns," said Joseph. "We are delivering a whole set of networking services on the Linux platform, initially supporting SuSE and Red Hat distributions, with additional support planned later on."
Brian Green, director of Nterprise Solutions at Novell Europe, Middle East and Africa, said Linux is becoming more important because of the cost savings it can bring to customers. "We are removing the inhibitors to allow the implementation of Linux."
Green said the move means Novell is taking Novell Services into the current Linux market, but more importantly also taking Linux into the enterprise market.
"Novell is the first major software vendor to support Linux and provide real solutions to customers, bringing real choice in platform and services to Novell and non-Novell enterprise customers - today."
The product was announced as part of Novell`s Linux strategy, Nterprise Linux Services, positioned as a suite of enterprise-ready software "allowing organisations that are embracing Linux as an OS strategy to economically replace Windows servers and extend NetWare services to the Linux platform without losing functionality".
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