Add Dell to a growing number of vendors using Novell to build Linux appliances. IBM, VMware and SAP are other notable computer companies to sign on with Novell.
The news became official this week when Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) announced that it is joining the SUSE Appliance Program. The company did not announce financial terms of terms of the partnership. The SUSE Linux Appliance Program is an extension of the SUSE Studio appliance technology and enables vendors to build and manage their own Linux software appliances.
“Dell and Novell have had an alliance for over 16 years, and this is an expansion to that relationship,” Josh Dorfman, director of strategic alliances at Novell, told InternetNews.com. “Dell has been actively looking at the appliance market opportunity, and SUSE Studio helps them easily develop appliance solutions.”
Dorfman declined to detail the full extent of Dell’s plans.
The SUSE Linux Appliance Program includes an on-premise version of SUSE Studio, which is a cloud-delivered service for building Linux appliances. Dorfman did confirm that Dell plans to use the full set of Novell appliance build tools from the SUSE Appliance Toolkit, which includes SUSE Studio Onsite. But he declined to elaborate on what Dell’s cloud deployment plans are, if any, in regards to Linux appliances.
Server Watch has a full report on Dell’s announcement including some of the things other key vendors are using Novell’s Linux appliance technology for.
