By John Geralds, VNU
Net
Dell has given Linux a boost by naming it as the company’s third
strategic operating system after Windows and Novell’s Netware.
Dell and Linux vendor Red Hat yesterday announced a joint
initiative, called the One Source Alliance, which aims to speed up
commercial acceptance of the open source operating system and meet
the growing demand for Linux-based systems for web-based
infrastructures.
Michael Lambert, senior vice president of Dell’s enterprise
systems group, said: “We’ve seen considerable growth to the Linux
operating system.” Dell plans to broaden its support for Red Hat
Linux, he added.
Lambert claimed that Dell’s range of PowerEdge and PowerAPP
servers based on Linux, Windows and Netware will enable the company
to address more than 80 per cent of the total server operating
environments by 2003.
“Linux is our Unix offering and we are working together with
Red Hat to capitalise on the enormous market opportunity for the
internet infrastructure build-out,” he said.
Dell will initially deliver Linux on Intel’s IA-32 architecture
but will work with Red Hat to migrate Linux into higher-end
IA-64-based systems.
Lambert said Dell’s adoption of Red Hat Linux would allow the
company to compete directly with Sun Microsystems’ Solaris
operating system.
Dell plans to train its support staff to provide technical aid
for the operating software and software testing at three US
centres.
Matthew Szulik, Red Hat chief executive officer, said: “To have
it on equal footing with Windows NT is a great move.”
Both Dell and Red Hat also promised to use each other’s products
internally. Red Hat will use Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell
Precision workstations, and Dell will implement Red Hat Linux
in certain areas of its IT manufacturing facilities.