REDMOND, Wash., and WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Three years after Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. first inked their groundbreaking interoperability collaboration agreement, more than 475 customers have successfully future-proofed their Windows and Linux* IT operations by helping ensure business continuity, minimize risk and optimize mixed-source infrastructure. As a result of this unique industry relationship, Microsoft and Novell announced that more than 20 of these new joint customers have signed up for a subscription service launched a year ago by Novell. The service provides expanded support, and for customers running other Linux distributions, including Red Hat* Enterprise Linux, the support subscriptions qualify them for intellectual property (IP) peace of mind from Microsoft, while they transition to SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server from Novell.

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Microsoft and Novell marked the third anniversary of the collaboration agreement during a gathering of IT executives at the Society of Information Management SIMPosium 09 conference in Seattle today.

"Forward-thinking companies are realizing the benefits of an interoperability collaboration designed to address the mixed-source realities we're facing today and will continue to face tomorrow," said Ted MacLean, general manager for Strategic Partnerships and Licensing at Microsoft. "Over the past three years, we have demonstrated our interoperability dedication time and again through the delivery of cross-platform technical solutions that carry the benefits of IP peace of mind. These solutions, coupled with Novell's proven technical support programs, make it easier than ever for our customers to have confidence that their existing infrastructure investments will serve them well into the future."

Business continuity was cited as a key factor for customers signing up for Novell's new SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support service subscription. Recognized for its outstanding Linux systems support programs, Novell extended its offerings through its collaboration agreement with Microsoft last year to help ensure that those using Red Hat or unsupported distributions of Linux also could benefit. With this offering, customers can elect to receive support for their existing operations for up to three years, and as part of this support, receive the IP peace of mind provided by Microsoft.

Expanded Support Service Ensures Business Continuity

"Novell's enterprise-grade Linux systems support offerings give IT executives immediate flexibility and control over their disparate Linux distributions without sacrifice," said Susan Heystee, vice president and general manager for Strategic Alliances at Novell. "In addition to support for legacy systems, we have also seen a growing number of organizations opt to use our Expanded Support service to help them press forward with plans to consolidate their Linux-based operations from Red Hat and other distributions onto SUSE Linux Enterprise Server."

MoneyGram International Inc., which provides money transfer and bill payment services across a global agent network spanning 190 countries and territories, is one of more than 20 companies that have taken this step. "When we chose to migrate from Red Hat to Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, we were looking for a highly available solution that would help minimize and ideally eliminate service interruptions, reduce maintenance and licensing costs, utilize our Windows Server investments, and make it possible to support growing business demands," said Paul Boespflug, senior manager of technology services for MoneyGram International. "As a result of standardizing our Linux infrastructure, and leveraging the Expanded Support offering from Novell, our systems are more cohesive, and we have been able to realize immediate cost reductions and improve our system reliability and stability."

IP Assurance Helps to Mitigate Risk

Reducing risk was another necessary requirement, according to customers. The intellectual property provisions provided through the collaboration agreement between Microsoft and Novell offer customers IP assurance and confidence in the viability of the solutions being delivered by the two companies.

Infracom Italia SpA also has elected to leverage interim support from Novell as it transitions from a competitive platform offering to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. "The relationship forged between Microsoft and Novell offers companies like ours -- who do, and will, run their operations in a mixed environment -- a tremendous benefit and increased efficiencies," said Aldo Serraglio, systems director of Infracom Network Application at Infracom Italia. "Novell's Expanded Support program for Red Hat will help us reduce costs immediately and optimize resources as we transition to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. In addition to the intellectual property peace of mind it offers us, the improved interoperability enables us to keep more resources focused on our core business."

Interoperability Solutions Optimize IT Infrastructure for Future Demands

Customers also identified optimizing IT infrastructure and enabling greater interoperability as critical needs addressed through this collaboration. Through the Microsoft and Novell Joint Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass., engineers from both companies have been working side by side to create technical solutions that help address customer challenges related to the complexity of managing and administering mixed-source environments.

"For customers considering a dual-platform strategy with Windows Server and a widely used Linux server product, they will come to realize that the interoperability between Microsoft and Novell platforms helps offer a clear advantage in cost reduction," said Wang Lei, project manager, China Telecom Ningxia Branch. "As a long-standing customer of Microsoft using Windows Server, we require optimized virtualization solutions and the ability to expand the capacity of our system administration. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell is an ideal choice for the Linux systems we operate and manage."

Progressive Approach Defies Economic Downturn

Viewed as a model for the industry, as the two companies collaborate yet still compete in the marketplace, the interoperability agreement between Microsoft and Novell has produced steady growth and traction with customers and partners alike. As of the end of Novell's third fiscal quarter, which ended July 31, 2009, the two companies have sold $226 million in certificates for Novell® SUSE Linux Enterprise Server support and maintenance. To date, we have served more than 475 customers across a broad range of industries and geographies.

"As a multi-vendor systems integrator supporting a broad base of mixed-source IT environments, we at Continental Resources have been witness to the positive impact this collaboration is having on the industry," said Ken Simon, vice president of sales, Enterico Division, Continental Resources Inc. "Those organizations we work with closely are benefiting greatly via the streamlined management functionality, more effective cross-platform support, IP assurance and industry-specific solutions that these two vendors have devised to help us and our customers respond to diverse business challenges and heightened cost concerns."

Additional information about the Microsoft and Novell agreement, customer migrations and their joint Interoperability Lab is available online at http://www.moreinterop.com.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers the best engineered, most interoperable Linux platform and a portfolio of integrated IT management software that helps customers around the world reduce cost, complexity and risk. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Novell and SUSE are registered trademarks of Novell Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.


                            Microsoft and Novell Collaboration
                              Select Customers and Partners
                                     November 2009

    Auburn University (U.S.)
    BASF IT Services (Germany)
    BATS Exchange Inc. (U.S.)
    BBVA Bank (Spain)
    Brasoftware Informatica Ltda. (Brazil)
    Cambridge Health Alliance (U.S.)
    CECI Engineering Consultants Inc. Taiwan (Taiwan)
    China Telecom Guizhou Branch (China)
    China Telecom Ningxia Branch (China)
    Continental Resources Inc. (U.S.)
    Connexion Technologies (U.S.)
    Fuji Technology (Asia) Co. Ltd. (Hong Kong)
    Geico (U.S.)
    Honda Taiwan Co. Ltd. (Taiwan)
    Infracom Italia SpA (Italy)
    Mammut Sports Group Austria GmbH (Austria)
    MoneyGram International Inc. (U.S.)
    The New Mexico Computing Applications Center (U.S.)
    Pirelli Sistemi Informativi Srl (Italy)
    Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers Inc. (U.S.)
    Synthes Inc. (Switzerland)
    Tatung Co. (Taiwan)
    TietoEnator PN Oy (Finland)
    Trustmarque Solutions (U.K.)
    UGI Utilities Inc. (U.S.)
    University of Barcelona (Spain)
    VTI Technologies (Finland)
    Watts Regulator Co. (U.S.)
    WebDeal AS (Norway)
    Windstream Communications (U.S.)

"We are pleased to see Microsoft and Novell working together so closely to foster greater interoperability between their platforms. Having evaluated their virtualization solutions in our lab, we realize the benefit of such collaboration and would encourage other vendors to follow a similar model of engagement."

    -- Bliss Bailey
       Executive Director
       Auburn University

"As IT supplier to the world's leading chemical company, whose business is completely reliant on constant innovation in the areas of chemicals, plastics, performance products, functional solutions, agricultural solutions, oil and gas, we appreciate Microsoft and Novell's five-year technology road map for interoperability between Linux and Windows and the supporting intellectual property assurances. For BASF IT Services, our innovations and solutions are what differentiate us from our competitors and enable us to deliver the leading interoperable solutions for virtualization, standards-based systems management, identity management and document format compatibility to our customers. The commercial foundation for innovation is the protection of our intellectual property, and we appreciate the efforts made here by Microsoft and Novell to find a solution that upholds these principles and delivers clear value to us and our customers, suppliers and partners."

    -- Norbert Karl Falck
       Director, Corporate IT and QM
       BASF IT Services

"Our technology infrastructure is a key strategic driver of our business, as the transaction services, innovative tools and real-time information we deliver to investors and broker-dealers through our world-class exchange platform have propelled us to the forefront of capital markets on both sides of the Atlantic. Because of this, we take time-to-market seriously and place high value on relationships we have forged with IT vendors such as Microsoft and Novell that have come forward with solutions that best meet our interoperability requirements and support our strategic and operational objectives."

    -- Chris Isaacson
       Chief Operating Officer
       BATS Exchange

"We deliver a broad range of financial services products to millions of individual and corporate customers spanning Europe, the Americas and Asia. In such a dynamic and stratified operational environment, people, teamwork, ethical principles and technology compose the cornerstones of our business. As such, we feel confident that our collaboration with Novell to migrate part of our IT operations to Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server supports our goals to make improvements in efficiency and profitability to maintain our leadership and competitive advantage."

    -- Fernando Martinez
       Head of Infrastructure
       BBVA Bank

"Brasoftware is very proud of our long-standing support of the interoperability agreement between Microsoft and Novell. With the cross-platform solutions and enterprise support offerings that have been borne out of this unprecedented collaboration between major IT vendors, we have been able to help our customers implement the systems, tools and process that not only enable them to get the most from their existing Windows and Linux infrastructure, but also make their organization more nimble for the future."

    -- Eduardo Sukarie
       Sales Director
       Brasoftware Informatica

"The alliance between Microsoft and Novell allowed us to deploy Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise systems more easily, making our work processes more efficient and convenient. From a customer's perspective, it is a win-win situation for everyone if the end users can benefit from this relationship."

    -- Jedi Chang
       Senior Engineer
       CECI Engineering Consultants

"We hope to maximize the value of our IT investments. The interoperability solutions available from Microsoft and Novell help us avoid potential intellectual property disputes, while reducing operational costs and risks. We have substantially benefited from this solution. We hope that the two companies will continue to work together and offer even more sophisticated solutions and functionality to users."

    -- Xia Xian Bin
       China Telecom Guizhou Branch

"For customers considering a dual-platform strategy with Windows Server and a widely used Linux server product, they will come to realize that the interoperability between Microsoft and Novell platforms helps offer a clear advantage in cost reduction. As a long-standing customer of Microsoft using Windows Server, we require optimized virtualization solutions and the ability to expand the capacity of our system administration. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell is an ideal choice for the Linux systems we operate and manage."

    -- Wang Lei
       Project Manager
       China Telecom Ningxia Branch

"The interoperability agreement between Microsoft and Novell is a leadership statement in the marketplace, as it addresses critical customer needs. As a multi-vendor systems integrator supporting a broad base of mixed-source IT environments, we at Continental Resources have been witness to the positive impact this collaboration is having on the industry. Those organizations we work with closely are benefiting greatly via the streamlined management functionality, more effective cross-platform support, IP assurance and industry-specific solutions that these two vendors have devised to help us and our customers respond to diverse business challenges and heightened cost concerns."

    -- Ken Simon
       Vice President of Sales, Enterico Division
       Continental Resources

"As a rapidly growing company, our continued success hinges on our ability to invest in areas that allow us to be nimble and to keep our primary focus on creating innovative solutions for our customers. The support and solutions we receive from Microsoft and Novell provide confidence that we can effectively meet these demands. By choosing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell as part of its alliance with Microsoft, we have already realized impressive gains in performance, the promise of cross-platform interoperability with Windows and significant savings in related support costs over Red Hat."

    -- Greg Lamm
       Director, Information Technology
       Connexion Technologies

"In a sizable company like ours, we cannot afford any downtime, and that's why we look to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell as a key component of our information technology strategy, which improves the overall availability of key infrastructure and critical applications, as well as reduces the overall cost of ownership. Microsoft and Novell have made a sound commitment to interoperability, with which we can ensure that our Windows and Linux environments work seamlessly together to significantly streamline our infrastructure."

    -- Keith Chan
       Chief Technology Officer
       Fuji Technology (Asia)

"Interoperability is one of the major challenges we encounter. The cooperation between Microsoft and Novell provides us with a solution to address this particular challenge. We want a widely supported Linux system that can help us reduce risks and costs, and eliminate the need for us to build different Linux platforms in our environment. With the two companies working together, we have the benefits of cross-platform interoperability, outstanding support and IP peace of mind."

    -- Chih Chien Huang
       Deputy Manager
       Honda Taiwan

"The relationship forged between Microsoft and Novell offers companies like ours -- who do, and will, run their operations in a mixed environment -- a tremendous benefit and increased efficiencies. Novell's Expanded Support program for Red Hat will help us reduce costs immediately and optimize resources as we transition to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. In addition to the intellectual property peace of mind it offers us, the improved interoperability enables us to keep more resources focused on our core business."

    -- Aldo Serraglio
       Systems Director
       Infracom Network Application

"Mammut Sports Group Austria is benefiting from the collaboration between Microsoft and Novell in several areas. First and foremost, we employ a great deal of Microsoft technology in our infrastructure yet have one important workload that remains on Linux. On the basis of Hyper-V as our virtualization platform, we could bring together the Linux and the Microsoft environment, with the benefit of seamlessly managing both platforms with Microsoft System Center technology.

"Our decision was then to migrate a customer mail marketing application from self-supported Fedora Linux onto Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to leverage the interoperability benefits from Microsoft and Novell. Working with Microsoft and Novell on this project has really convinced us that their unique collaboration delivers real and valuable solutions to customers with a heterogeneous infrastructure. The bonus is a high degree of consolidation in budget-sensitive areas like server utilization, heterogeneous management, cross-vendor support and unified product licensing."

    -- Mario Langmann
       Chief Technology Officer
       Mammut Sports Group Austria

"MoneyGram International's global agent network in 190 countries and territories, along with our U.S. MoneyGram Online operations, are dependent on a reliable system to provide our money transfer and bill payment services. When we chose to migrate from Red Hat to Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, we were looking for a highly available solution that would help minimize and ideally eliminate service interruptions, reduce maintenance and licensing costs, utilize our Windows Server investments, and make it possible to support growing business demands. As a result of standardizing our Linux infrastructure, and leveraging the Expanded Support offering from Novell, our systems are more cohesive, and we have been able to realize immediate cost reductions and improve our system reliability and stability."



    -- Paul Boespflug
       Senior Manager, Technology Services
       MoneyGram

"The Microsoft-Novell business and technical collaboration provides exemplary interoperability solutions and added assurance concerning intellectual property rights. This is quite valuable for global organizations operating mixed-source IT environments, like ours. Through the continued collaboration of Novell and Microsoft, we better manage and administer our mixed IT systems. We are pleased with the technology developments we have seen to date and look forward to future technical developments."

    -- Gabriele Bravin
       Head of Hardware and Operating System Specialist
       Pirelli Sistemi Informativi

"To be successful in creating secure, scalable and interoperable solutions for the high-performance computing (HPC) industry, the collaboration among Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers Inc. (RMSC), Microsoft, Novell and Adaptive Computing Enterprises Inc. has required steadfast commitments from all parties. RMSC values the collaboration and mature solutions we have had with these companies, as it has enabled us to retain our primary focus on delivering our on-demand supercomputing platforms as a service (SPaaS) business model. Being a first-of-a-kind public-private partnership has allowed RMSC to help customers with all degrees of HPC familiarity achieve greater performance and efficiency at reduced cost via a production compute cloud environment. RMSC -- with its partner community that includes operating systems from Microsoft and Novell and intelligent cluster workload management from Adaptive Computing Enterprises -- is driving commercial advancements, governmental solutions and academic discoveries that will move mountains for Montana's economic growth."

    -- Alex Philp
       CEO and Chairman of the Board
       Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers Inc. (RMSC)

"A key factor in our decision to use SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell is to ensure interoperability between Microsoft's products and other platforms, without raising new concerns around intellectual property. Many companies, including ours, have been able to benefit from the practical solutions that have been made available through the interoperability agreement between Microsoft and Novell to create integrated solutions for our own customers."

    -- Stephen Wang
       Senior Manager
       Tatung

"Our customers are very interested in the technical benefits being delivered jointly from Microsoft and Novell today. The two former competitors have worked together to ensure that Novell was the first Linux distribution to be validated under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program 14 months ago; that Novell was the first Linux distribution to produce a commercially available advanced management pack that worked with Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager, making cross-platform management a reality; and that Novell was the first Linux distribution to pioneer directory federation solutions with Novell Access Manager 3.1 and Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services, enabling partnering organizations to share digital identity information across organization boundaries. Microsoft and Novell also jointly offer an unprecedented set of commercial and legal benefits that enable existing Linux customers to get access to some of the very best technical solutions at the very lowest commercial prices -- which, combined with the intellectual property protection provisions, means that almost all customers can build an extremely strong business case for Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell. Microsoft is recommending Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to its customers operating a mixed-source environment, and so are we at Trustmarque Solutions."

    -- Scott Haddow
       Chief Executive Officer
       Trustmarque Solutions

"As a natural gas and electric utility company serving more than 600,000 commercial and residential customers throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania, UGI Utilities is literally in business to 'keep the lights on' 24x7. As such, we place a very high value on world-class support, especially during off-hours or critical service outages. To address this need, we chose Novell's Expanded Support offering to help manage our existing Red Hat Linux environment. In addition to superior quality support, the Novell offering has also reduced our Linux support-related costs by over 60 percent."

    -- Scott Culbertson
       Vice President, Information Services
       UGI Utilities

"As Spain's leading academic research institution, University of Barcelona employs more than 5,000 full-time researchers spanning 109 departments, hosts three large research foundations and supports hundreds of additional joint projects with the business sector. In an effort to maximize the efficiency of our diverse operations and play an active part in the stewardship of technological research, we have chosen to migrate many of our existing Red Hat and unsupported Linux server assets to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell, as we have found that this offering demonstrates substantive benefits in meeting our requirements for centralized management functions, greater interoperability with Microsoft Windows and cross-platform virtualization support."

    -- Joan Llopart
       Infrastructure Director
       University of Barcelona

"With our factories running around the clock, we cannot afford operational downtime. The choice to migrate our Linux-based systems from Red Hat to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell has helped to reduce this risk. Not only have we been able to achieve greater interoperability and cross-platform management with Windows Server 2008, but we have also seen significant improvement in the performance of key workloads and a notable reduction in the overall cost and complexity of our datacenter environment. Moreover, the systems management solutions resulting from the collaboration between Microsoft and Novell present us with some flexibility to realize additional cost savings as well as the potential to extend virtualization even further."

    -- Sami Holopainen
       Manager, IT Operations and Support
       VTI Technologies

"Thousands of customers around the world rely on us for maintenance, scalability, performance and trend analysis, and other key IT infrastructure management services to ensure their mission-critical operations are up and running around the clock. The technical collaboration between Microsoft and Novell has made it possible for us not only to streamline cross-platform management and interoperability across both Windows Server 2008 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell, but also to reduce costs and help ensure 24x7 service availability for our customers."

    -- Jan Aril Sigvartsen
       Chief Executive Officer
       WebDeal

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.