IBM and Novell Help PC Users Collaborate, Save Money and Avoid Vendor Lock-In

IBM and Novell Help PC Users Collaborate, Save Money and Avoid Vendor Lock-In

To help businesses avoid the high costs of over reliance on a single vendor, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced an integrated open collaboration client for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop from Novell. The announcement was made at the opening of LinuxWorld in San Francisco.
An open client is personal computing software that is based on open standards, providing businesses with an alternative to proprietary desktop applications. The integrated open collaboration client is available through IBM and Novell business partners.

Moving away from an entirely proprietary approach to computing to a platform based on open standards gives businesses the freedom to select the best mix of software and services for their organization, regardless of legacy systems. For example, with this open client businesses can save up to $300-$500(1) per user over proprietary offerings such as Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office. Administration and deployment time can also be reduced through one click installation capabilities.

The open collaboration client includes advanced email and calendar capabilities, proven unified communication and collaboration functionality and lightweight yet powerful word processing, spreadsheet and presentation capabilities with OpenDocument Format (ODF) support. Because the open client is built on the Eclipse open framework, business ready social networking, team collaboration and portal technologies can easily be added to a Linux PC user’s desktop.

“Effective desktop management is a challenge for organizations today,” said Roger Levy, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions for Novell. “Novell is collaborating with IBM on the open collaboration client bundle powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise to help customers meet that challenge and benefit from improved collaboration, increased end-user productivity, strengthened security, and reduced total cost of ownership.”

Read the complete Press Release