Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. are announcing an incremental investment in their relationship focused on converting unsupported Linux* users to supported SUSE® Linux Enterprise, with a particular emphasis on the Chinese market. This is a result of increasing customer demand in the region for their business model solution, which builds a bridge between open source and proprietary software and provides interoperability and intellectual property (IP) peace of mind for organizations operating mixed-source IT environments.

This increased demand is exemplified by the People’s Insurance Company of China Group (PICC), The Dairy Farm Company Ltd. (Dairy Farm) and Dawning Information Industry Co. Ltd. (Dawning), which have agreed to receive Microsoft certificates for three-year support subscriptions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell®.

Microsoft and Novell’s collaboration in China will focus on joint marketing and training efforts that tap into two emerging areas of interoperability demand: high-performance computing (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server running in a dual-boot configuration) and virtualization (cross-platform virtualization solutions featuring Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Xen technology). This will include hosting round-table discussions with local chief information officers in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, running a virtualization customer pilot, and conducting technology workshops to assist the conversion from unsupported Linux to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

In addition, Novell and Microsoft’s collaboration will focus on efforts to convert unsupported Linux users to SUSE Linux Enterprise support, in China and elsewhere, which builds upon a growing global trend of large, multinational companies increasing their demand for subscribed and supported Linux. This is due at least partly to the growing recognition among customers of the true costs and risk associated with running an unsupported IT environment, including the need for patches and bug fixes, supporting forked code, and retaining IT staff.