Novell Offers Enterprise Support To Linux

Novell on Wednesday launched enterprise-level support for its Linux products.

The Waltham, Mass., company's Premium ServiceSM support program cover's a customer's entire Linux environment, from servers to desktops to laptops. Novell also announced technical support options for smaller companies, enabling them to buy support for Suse Linux servers or other Novell Linux products.

Because the enterprise service covers an organization's entire Linux deployment, as opposed to product by product, customers can add Linux services for desktops or servers, for example, without an additional support contract, Novell said.

Customers also can buy single server-based support for Suse Linux Enterprise Server, and for small Linux deployments, the company is offering a small business option that covers a range of Novell Luse Linux and Ximian products.

Products covered by the new support options include Novell Red Carpet Enterprise, Novell Suse Linux Enterprise and Standard Server, Desktop and OpenExchange Server, and the Novell Ximian Desktop and Evolution Connector for Microsoft Exchange.Novell announced its $210 million acquisition of Suse Linux AG last November, making the network software company the No. 2 seller of the open source operating system and intensifying competition with Microsoft, whose Windows operating system competes with Linux in the computer server market.

The acquisition added 600 Linux support staff to Novell worldwide.