SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9, the first enterprise-class Linux server to leverage the new Linux 2.6 kernel, will be available with Dell PowerEdge 1850, 2800 and 2850 servers. The operating system will come bundled with the server at the time of purchase. Novell and Dell will collaborate on customer support.

Linda York, vice president of global alliances marketing in Dell's product group, said the offering gives customers another robust and scalable enterprise platform to replace more costly proprietary UNIX-based systems or to deploy the Linux operating system for the first time.

According to Dell, the servers are ideal for customers deploying Web farms, IT infrastructures and custom applications.

Novell acquired SUSE LINUX in January of this year, positioning itself as a major competitor to Red Hat Linux, the industry's leading Linux vendor. Analysts say the agreement is good news for Novell, which has had a tough time breaking into the North America market, where Red Hat has strong enterprise support. Most of Novell's enterprise customers are in the European Union.

"Dell's decision to collaborate with Novell on Linux is a vote of confidence in our Linux strategy and is great news for customers around the world," says David Patrick, vice president of Linux, open source and platform services at Novell. "Existing Novell customers get new options for their future hardware platform needs, while new customers gain a top-notch enterprise Linux offering on one of the most robust server platforms in the world, backed by Novell's global ecosystem of enterprise-level Linux services."