WALTHAM, MASS.
11 Nov 2008

Offering provides award-winning support and tools to aid customers moving from an existing Linux distribution to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Novell today announced the availability of a new subscription and support program designed to aid customers making the transition from their existing third-party Linux* distribution to SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server.The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Subscription with Expanded Support program includes a three-year subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server that provides technical support for a customer's existing Linux deployments for up to two years while they make the transition to SUSE Linux Enterprise.

The new program is in response to growing customer demand for help as they make the strategic decision to transition their data center Linux infrastructure from existing third-party distributions, such as Red Hat* Enterprise Linux and CentOS, to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Many times, customers who want to move between platforms are constrained by factors such as IT resource limitations, application migration scheduling and training costs, which means they need time to make an orderly transition. In response to these challenges, Novell is providing technical support for a customer's existing Linux environment and is also delivering training and tools to ensure the transition to the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform is smooth and successful.

“As the Linux market matures, we are increasingly being approached by customers who want to move to SUSE Linux Enterprise, attracted by Novell's award-winning support, superb interoperability in mixed-source environments, and by our support for mission critical applications,” said Justin Steinman, vice president of Solution and Product Marketing at Novell. “is new program makes it even easier for these customers to make the move to Novell.”

“We made the transition to Novell and to SUSE Linux Enterprise because the total cost of ownership was much lower when compared to our existing Red Hat installation,” said George Rapp, senior vice president of Information Systems at Stonebridge Bank. “We're also very impressed by the interoperability Novell offers for diverse environments like our data center, and the management tools that ship with SUSE Linux Enterprise make setup, management and on-going maintenance very easy.”

The new program is available immediately. Please contact Novell sales for more information.

About SUSE Linux Enterprise
The next-generation platform for the open enterprise, SUSE Linux Enterprise is the best-engineered and most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing, from the desktop to the data center. In a customer study conducted by independent research firm Lighthouse Research, Novell gained top ratings for overall support, and significantly outpaced Red Hat and Oracle Linux on both timeliness of phone support and support of mixed platforms, open source and proprietary software. The full report, with methodology and detailed results, is available at http://www.novell.com/linux/support-survey.html. For more information on SUSE Linux Enterprise offerings from Novell, visit www.novell.com/linux. For more information about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, visit www.novell.com/products/server.