Greater recognition from US vendors was one of the benefits the European Linux vendor was expecting once Provo, Utah-based Novell closed its purchase of SuSE, and that appears to have been proven by Dell and Egenera’s support.
Austin, Texas-based Dell has previously been a one-Linux company, preferring close ties with Red Hat rather than relationships with multiple vendors, while Hewlett-Packard Co and IBM Corp have long-partnered with both Red Hat and SuSE.
The approval of Dell is a significant step forward for SuSE because it is now, like Red Hat, supported by the top three Linux hardware vendors. The agreement between the two creates a new certification process for SuSE Linux on Dell products and customer support from both companies.
Dell and SuSE said they have identified workflow processes to ensure that joint customers receive consistent and effective support for technical problems, while the certification and quality assurance procedures would help to stamp out potential issues before they occur.
Marlboro, Massachusetts-based blade server start-up Egenera had also previously restricted itself to one flavor of Linux: Red Hat. Supporting SuSE Linux Enterprise 8 should help the company expand into new markets, however.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
