SUSE Linux and IBM Launch Software Integration Center to Deliver Best-of-Breed Enterprise Solution Stacks

December 5, 2003


Partnership to optimize interaction between SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and IBM Middleware

Nuremberg/Germany, Toronto/Canada

SUSE Linux and IBM today announced the foundation of a joint Software Integration Center located at the IBM Toronto Lab - providing enterprise customers optimized interaction of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system with IBM software offerings. The collaboration will initially focus on IBM DB2 Universal Database offerings and will subsequently be extended to other IBM software products.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the first Linux operating system to be validated on all hardware platforms supported by DB2 for Linux and validated to run DB2 Enterprise Server Edition. In the Software Integration Center, IBM and SUSE will collaborate on porting, migration, certification and support of future IBM DB2 software offerings on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server platform. This will ensure optimized functionality of database applications and underlying enterprise operating system technology -- making SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and IBM DB2 database software a highly available, scalable combination for mission-critical deployments in data centers. In addition, customers will benefit from the unique quality of server operating system and IBM middleware being perfectly tuned and the even faster availability of certified updates.

"The SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center at the IBM Toronto Lab will intensify the work already underway to optimize DB2 and other IBM software products with SUSE Linux offerings," said Bob Picciano, Director of Database Technology, IBM Toronto Software Lab. "The result will be solutions that can help provide customers with a rapid return on investment, particularly for IBM's integrated Linux database cluster. It takes the longstanding, close engineering relationship between IBM and SUSE to a higher level with the ultimate goal of higher customer satisfaction."

"The new SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center strengthens SUSE Linux and IBM's commitment to deliver enterprise-class Linux software that can be deployed with maximum performance, highest availability and unprecedented low cost of ownership," said Uwe Heine, Chief Alliance Officer of SUSE Linux. "Using IBM software applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, combined with the SUSE Linux Maintenance Program, businesses benefit from high stability of their mission-critical Linux deployments, considerably saving software integration and administration workload."

About IBM's Data Management Business

There are more than 60 million DB2 users from 425,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM DB2 Universal Database. IBM is the only data management software vendor to provide customers with integrated solutions for database management, tools, content management, enterprise information integration and business intelligence. For more information please visit www.software.ibm.com/data

About Novell
Novell, Inc. is a leading provider of information solutions that deliver secure identity management (Novell® Nsure™), Web application development (Novell exteNd™) and cross-platform networking services (Novell Nterprise™), all supported by strategic consulting and professional services (Novell NgageSM). Active in the open source community with its Ximian and SUSE Linux brands, Novell is firmly committed to open source and offers comprehensive Linux products and services for the enterprise, from the desktop to the server. Novell's vision of one Net - a world without information boundaries - helps customers realize the value of their information securely and economically. For more information, call Novell's Customer Response Center at (888) 321-4CRC (4272) or visit http://www.novell.com. Press should visit http://www.novell.com/pressroom.

Novell is a registered trademarks; Nsure, exteNd and Nteprise are trademarks; and Ngage is a service mark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. SUSE is a registered trademark of SUSE Linux AG. * All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.