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Financial firms pick up Microsoft/Novell certificates

Graeme Wearden ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 20 Dec 2006 16:25 GMT

Microsoft claimed on Wednesday that its deal with Novell has won support from several major financial institutions who are moving to a "mixed-source" environment.

An an announcement as light on detail as the original deal with Novell, Microsoft said it is providing 16,000 Suse Linux Enterprise subscription certificates in total to Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies. These coupons entitle the companies to run virtualised Windows on Suse Linux Enterprise Server, or virtualised Suse Linux Enterprise Server on top of Windows.

This virtualisation support is a key part of the deal struck between Microsoft and Novell in early November, which also includes a commitment to develop greater interoperability between the two companies' products and not to sue each other over patent infringement; at the time this led to speculation that Microsoft may launch legal action against other Linux vendors.

Microsoft was not immediately able to provide details of this latest deal with Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies. It could not say whether the companies paid for the crtificates, nor whether any of the companies are acquiring any extra software with the deal. Novell was also not immediately able to provide details of the deal.

Ron Hovsepian, president and chief executive of Novell, said in a statement: "Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies' decisions to deploy Suse Linux Enterprise, following so closely on the heels of our announcement with Microsoft, are powerful, early proof points of the value of our joint collaboration, and we expect more success stories like this over the coming quarters."

Novell is hoping that the promise of interoperability with Microsoft will encourage firms who are looking at Linux to choose Suse.