Microsoft and Linux haven’t always had the friendliest of rapports but, many years back, the folk at Redmond decided to cozy as much as Novell and the enterprise-focused distro SUSE. The German arm of the corporate even wished Tux a cheerful 20th birthday last week, in an further thaw their notoriously chilly relationship. Now the Windows crew have decided to resume their partnership with SUSE and feature committed to buying $100 million in technical support for Microsoft Enterprise customers who also happen to be running Linux boxes as portion of their operations. It is not about to forestall claiming that the open source OS violates several of its patents , but at the least they’ve learned to get such as out suing one another into oblivion… unlike another companies we could name . Cough . Take a look at the entire PR after the break.
Microsoft and SUSE Renew Successful Interoperability Agreement
Strong customer response ends up in four-year, $100 million extension.
REDMOND, Wash., and NUREMBERG, Germany – July 25, 2011 – Microsoft Corp. and SUSE, an independent business unit of The Attachmate Group Inc., today announced a four-year extension of the groundbreaking agreement struck nearly five years ago between Microsoft and Novell Inc. for broad collaboration on Windows and Linux interoperability and support. This relationship will extend through Jan. 1, 2016, with Microsoft committed to speculate $100 million in new SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates for purchasers receiving Linux support from SUSE.
Customer Momentum
Because it operating environments become increasingly consumerized, cloud-based and automatic, there’s an implicit expectation that the underlying technologies from multiple vendors should interact. For that reason, the collaborative relationship between Microsoft and SUSE has end up viewed as a model for the industry.
The joint Microsoft-SUSE collaboration has served greater than 725 customers worldwide across a number industries, reminiscent of manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, and fiscal services. Recent additions include Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea, ALSTOM IT Shared Service Centres, Celesio AG, Colt Technology Services Group Ltd., Coop Danmark A/S, FagorBrandt SAS, LIBRO Handelsgesellschaft mbH, Nationale Suisse, Swiss Re and Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH. Moreover, through this alliance, SUSE enables customers to consolidate their Linux support by offering subscription support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and community Linux distributions inclusive of CentOS.
“As one of several largest banking corporations in Spain, we provide our clients a broad portfolio of monetary services,” said Fernando Martinez, infrastructure manager at BBVA Bank. “In an operational environment this dynamic and stratified, the personnel, teamwork, ethical principles and technology define the backbone of our business. We depend at the SUSE Expanded Support Program emigrate component to our IT operations to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, because it supports our objectives for greater interoperability for our Windows and Linux systems.”
Partner Opportunity
Microsoft and SUSE even have driven significant opportunities for partners which have leveraged the companies’ collaboration as a method of meeting their very own customers’ demand for interoperability. Companies reminiscent of Dell Inc. have benefited as both a customer and reseller of Microsoft and SUSE solutions. Further, SHI International Corp., a number one U.S.-based reseller of software, hardware and services, and Adaptive Computing Enterprises Inc., a premier workload management independent software vendor serving the high-performance computing sector, have helped their very own customers realize enjoy the joint solutions on account of the collaboration. Select international partners include ALSANET AG, Bechtle AG, Comparex AT, ErmesTel, Kelway Ltd., Liga Distribution ApS, NEXPERT AG, SCC, Securelinx Ltd., Softcat Ltd., Stover AS, Trustmarque Solutions Ltd. and 2e2.
“The Microsoft-SUSE expanded support program has helped a variety of our customers standardize on SUSE as an optimized guest on Hyper-V, in addition to provide a highly cost-effective support program for non-SUSE distributions, including Red Hat,” said James Largotta, global vice chairman of sales for BridgeWays, an independent software vendor that develops management packs to increase the cross-platform capabilities of Microsoft System Center. “Subsequently, we discover the interoperability partnership between Microsoft and SUSE to be highly complementary to the work we do, especially with the emergence of the personal cloud.”
“The undeniable fact that we’ve got interoperability inside the industry today is a large step in comparison to the old days,” said Professor Dr. Ulrich Trottenberg, director, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI). “For Fraunhofer SCAI, it truly is critical because we’ve got such a lot of different technologies that we must work with to satisfy the wishes of our customers and to support our own research. We’re pleased to peer that Microsoft and SUSE are proactively exploring tips on how to improve platform interoperability. This can be so important since both vendors also are resolving intellectual property concerns, which drives greater choice and versatility for his or her customers.”
Advancing Cross-Platform Interoperability Into the Cloud
Microsoft and SUSE have built a bridge for patrons between the 2 worlds of open source and proprietary software. As this collaboration moves forward, the 2 companies will continue to present the best levels of interoperability and assurance that both companies stand behind their solutions.
“Our collaboration with SUSE not just helps customers to be successful today, but in addition seeks to give them with an exceptional foundation for tomorrow,” said Sandy Gupta, general manager of the Open Solutions Group at Microsoft. “Through our continued engagement at the technical side, a great support offering from SUSE and our ability to present mutual IP assurance, we feel confident that we are going to have the capacity to deliver core value to these running mixed-source IT environments well into the longer term – and into the cloud.”
“We’re pleased to increase our long-term relationship with Microsoft,” said Michael Miller, vp, Global Alliances and Marketing, SUSE. “Our mutual commitment to assist organizations benefit from mixed Linux and Windows Server environments is what has made this collaboration successful. We are able to continue to work with Microsoft to deliver solutions that enable our joint customers to regulate critical workloads in mixed-source environments across a variety of computing models, including private, hybrid and entire-cloud implementations.”
Microsoft and SUSE will also continue their technical collaboration on solutions to aid customers work more efficiently within the areas of cloud, virtualization and manageability. One such example is thru the integration of a cross-platform solution with Microsoft Hyper-V Cloud and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, giving IT managers a powerful technique to migrate to a personal cloud architecture. The firms also plan to increase Microsoft System Center through integration with SUSE Manager and choose technologies to augment Linux deployment, patching and updating.
About SUSE
SUSE is a number one provider of enterprise Linux solutions that increase agility, reduce cost and manage complexity in dynamic environments. With a portfolio centered around SUSE Linux Enterprise, the foremost interoperable platform for mission-critical computing, SUSE enables organizations to confidently deliver computing services across physical, virtual and cloud environments. With our award-winning products, open source communities and ecosystem of partnerships, SUSE solutions empower thousands of organizations around the globe. For additional info, visit www.suse.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the global leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
SUSE is a registered trademark of Novell Inc. within the U.S. and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. The names of tangible companies and products mentioned herein often is the trademarks in their respective owners.
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