Tuesday, 23 January 2007

Microsoft and Novell Alliance Embraced by Wal-Mart

Microsoft and Novell have revealed that Wal-Mart, a retail store, has become the latest customer to take advantage of the benefits of the new collaboration on interoperability between Microsoft Windows and Linux. Under the agreement, Microsoft will deliver SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription certificates to Wal-Mart for use in Wal-Mart's IT infrastructure. The engagement among the three companies opens a host of other potential opportunities for both Microsoft and Novell to provide Wal-Mart with additional software resources and support, building on future joint research and developments around virtualisation and interoperability, both the companies said in a statement.

Wal-Mart, a user of Microsoft products, is pleased that the collaboration will improve interoperability among various systems. "We have wanted information technology vendors to deliver interoperability and IP assurance between multiple platforms for some time now, and we are pleased that Microsoft and Novell are committed to fulfilling that need," said Nancy Stewart, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Wal-Mart.

By working together with Microsoft and Novell, Wal-Mart gains the ability to manage Windows and Linux by extending its existing Microsoft management tool set and authentication platform—Systems Management Server, Active Directory and Microsoft Operations Manager, the companies added.

On November 2, 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support new solutions to improve interoperability, deliver new virtualisation capabilities. As part of this five-year agreement, Microsoft agreed to use, resell or distribute certificates that customers redeem to receive SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions for upgrades, updates and technical support from Novell.