Microsoft and SUSE, an independent business unit of the Attachmate Group, have extended an existing four-year agreement entered earlier between Microsoft and Novell for broad collaboration on Windows and Linux interoperability and support.
The new deal will extend until 1 January 2016, and Microsoft has agreed to invest $100m in new SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates for customers receiving Linux support from SUSE.
The joint Microsoft-SUSE collaboration enables customers to consolidate their Linux support by offering subscription support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and community Linux distributions such as CentOS.
The joint commitment is aimed to allow organisations make the most of mixed Linux and Windows Server environments, and enable joint customers to manage critical workloads in mixed-source environments across a wide range of computing models, including private, hybrid and full-cloud implementations.
The deal will enable Microsoft and SUSE to proactively exploring ways to improve platform interoperability since both vendors are also resolving intellectual property concerns, in a bid to offer greater choice for their customers.
Through the agreement, the two companies intend to meet their own customers’ demand for interoperability as well as provide enhanced support programme for non-SUSE distributions, including Red Hat.
Both the partners aim to continue their technical collaboration on offerings to help customers work more efficiently in the areas of cloud and virtualisation, as well as plan to extend Microsoft System Center through integration with SUSE Manager and select technologies to enhance Linux deployment, patching and updating.
