Computer Associates Inc yesterday fleshed out details of its partnership with Linux distributor RedHat Software under which the two will port CA’s systems and network management software, Unicenter TNG, to RedHat’s version of the open source operating system (OS). Speaking to a press conference during the second day of the LinuxWorld trade show in San Jose, California yesterday, Yogesh Gupta, CA’s senior VP of product strategy said the company expected to have completed the Unicenter/Linux integration by the middle of this year and plans to distribute both its Unicenter framework (a subset of the full-blown application’s functionality) software and the free OS bundled together on a CD. Users wanting to upgrade to the full version of TNG will be offered the chance to do so under a very aggressive pricing strategy Gupta said, which CA will announce later this year. He said that CA had chosen to work with RedHat because it has the largest share of the Linux market – between 55% and 70% – and because it focused on pushing the OS in the enterprise sector where CA primarily targets its products. Another major factor was RedHat’s focus on support for the OS. It was easy…..it was straightforward who to partner with, he concluded. Under the agreement, Paul McNamara, RedHat VP of business development, said RedHat would also bundle versions of CA’s framework with its Linux OS and applications CD. It will, however, charge for support services as a way of drawing in revenue and CA said it would actively promote RedHat as its service provider of choice. The two companies said they aim to distribute a million copies of their CDs, half a million each, by the end of this year. They will also work together on sales leads, attending meetings jointly and recommending each other’s software to potential customers, Gupta said. He stressed CA was very serious about this but added that the company wouldn’t be making an investment in RedHat, although as with MTI’s belated investment in Caldera announced yesterday (CI No 3.609) there’s no ruling one out in the future. The agreement isn’t exclusive for either company and Gupta said he wouldn’t be surprised if RedHat were to form similar partnerships with other enterprise management software vendors. The next version of Unicenter TNG will also support Linux when its released later this year, CA said. á