Microsoft, Novell sign up BMW and Siemens to Linux deal

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BMW and Siemens today are the latest European organisations to sign up to the Windows and Linux interoperability agreement between Microsoft and Novell.

The two separate deals, announced today, makes certificates for three-year priority support subscriptions to Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server available to the two companies, with the aim of running Windows on the platform in a 'mixed-source' environment more cost-effectively and efficiently.

The two vendors said BMW and Siemens are the latest organisations to join a steadily growing group of European companies, including Credit Suisse and HSBC, that are benefiting from the agreement signed last year to jointly build and support solutions to improve interoperability, deliver new virtualisation capabilities and eliminate intellectual property or licensing conflicts.

The deal will facilitate a dual-vendor data centre management strategy for BMW, to support worldwide IT resource provision including human resource, marketing and financial applications more efficiently and reliably.

Meanwhile, the agreement will directly affect customer software application development and management of a large number of current and legacy Linux applications in customer environments managed by Siemens Enterprise Communications.

"Siemens customers operate in a heterogeneous environment, and our ability to harness the interoperability work between Novell and Microsoft brings immense value to our business," said Dr Manfred Wangler, vice president of corporate research and technology at Siemens.

"Agreements like this allow us to focus on innovating, working with partners to improve processes and efficiencies by providing the framework for collaboration."

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