MSFT: More Customer Momentum Around the Microsoft-Novell (NOVL) Agreement

Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies today became some of the first customers to tap the benefits of the recently announced collaboration between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. on interoperability between Microsoft® Windows® and Linux.* Under three separate customer agreements, Microsoft will deliver to each company SUSE® Linux Enterprise subscription certificates, allowing these customers to take advantage of the Microsoft and Novell agreement. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and AIG Technologies, which is a member company of American International Group Inc., highlighted the benefits of interoperability, the patent cooperation agreement and the road map for bidirectional virtualization solutions as the deciding factors in their choice.

Deutsche Bank, already a significant user of Novell and Microsoft products, was pleased that the collaboration would improve interoperability among various systems. “Employing both Windows and Linux in our company always seemed the right thing to do, but making the systems work together would require a significant amount of time and resources,” said Clemens Jochum, chief technology officer of Deutsche Bank AG. “Microsoft and Novell’s agreement gives us the benefit of choice of platforms and tremendous flexibility that will help make our company more competitive and efficient.”

“For us, interoperability is key,” said Tom Sanzone, chief information officer at Credit Suisse. “We see both Windows and SUSE Linux as strategic platforms going forward, and we’re very pleased to see Microsoft and Novell, who support these platforms, step up and work on interoperability. This is a great model because it provides a bridge to connect the open source and proprietary software to benefit customers. We commend the two companies for taking this step.”

“It’s critical that our technology offerings be forward-looking, integrated and positioned to support our mission of delivering high value at market price,” said Mark Popolano, global chief information officer for AIG. “Microsoft and Novell’s commitment to working together to deliver interoperability and IP assurance helps us achieve that mission. Our goal of engaging in this pilot program is to explore how we can become a more flexible organization.”

On Nov. 2, 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support new solutions to improve interoperability, deliver powerful new virtualization capabilities, make Microsoft and Novell products work better together, and give customers peace of mind that both companies stand behind the products they deliver.

“Deutsche Bank’s, Credit Suisse’s 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,” said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell. “By solving a real customer problem, taking the complexity out of the customers’ hands and addressing it ourselves, we create a compelling incentive for customers to deploy Linux. This shows that SUSE Linux Enterprise is, in fact, absolutely ready for the datacenter.”

“Customers have been very clear that they want Windows and Linux to work better together in mixed-source environments,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We are pleased that customers such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies have moved so quickly to act on the value of the interoperability commitments and intellectual property benefits of our collaboration with Novell.”

A recent survey of 201 IT professionals, jointly commissioned by Microsoft and Novell from independent market research firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates Inc., found that over 90 percent of respondents approve the collaboration, saying the agreement will benefit customers by increasing the interoperability of IT systems. A copy of the survey is available at http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1257. To date, more than 16,000 new certificates for SUSE Linux Enterprise have been activated under the Microsoft and Novell collaboration agreement.

More information on the agreement can be found at http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft and http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers infrastructure software for the Open Enterprise. We are a leader in enterprise-wide operating systems based on Linux and open source and the security and systems management services required to operate mixed IT environments. We help our customers minimize cost, complexity and risk, allowing them to focus on innovation and growth. For more information, visit http://www.novell.com