IBM and Novell announced at this week’s LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco that they will partner to offer IBM’s open collaboration client on SUSE Linux Enterprise desktop.

This comes somewhat as a surprise for two reasons:

Novell had been making headlines earlier this year over their controversial licensing arrangements with Microsoft, signaling a closer relationship with Redmond. The deal with IBM is clearly directed to counter Microsoft by offering a cheaper alternative to Exchange server and Office on the desktop.

Secondly, what is happening to Groupwise, Novell’s own desktop suite? There have been some recent rumors that Novell may discontinue any future development on the product, which were promptly denied by Novell’s Groupwise Director of engineering.

It should be interesting to see what the future will bring. It certainly seems like a great move by IBM to further leverage their investment in Linux.

Technorati Tags: IBM, Novell, SUSE, Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Microsoft

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