HHS Signs Major Linux Deal With Novell

An anonymous reader writes "The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has signed a major deal with Novell to begin rolling out their enterprise server and desktop products on government systems. The contract provides unlimited use of Novell products to about 70,000 at HHS, including about 30,000 NIH users. Under the arrangement Novell is providing to HHS 'unlimited access, upgrade protection and technical support' for products, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell Linux Desktop, patch management, and a range of identity-based services for management, integration and security."

Comments

Re:Leaving something out???

[jusdisgi]

Um, people seem to be leaving a very important part out of this... And I quote: "An NIH source says there are no plans to "unseat" Microsoft products, which are widely used throughout HHS."

I suppose your /. handle explains why you think that's the important part. For the rest of us around here, the important part is a multimillion dollar deal for a major Linux vendor, the ratification of that vendor as real-deal for huge enterprise, and ultimately thousands more Linux servers in production. That last bit is probably the kicker for most of us, because it bodes well for our future employability.

That said, I find it hard to believe that this won't be unseating any MS products...unless you take a real narrow view of it. Put yourself in the CIO's position; you have unlimited access to Novell products, but you have to pay per-seat for the MS gear. Sure, machines already running a paid-for copy of Windows will probably stay that way...but I expect every time an NT4 fileserver gets upgraded these folks will be evaluating whether to pay MS or use the Novell stuff. And I'd expect that to become lots more pronounced as upgrade pressure mounts over the next few years. Don't forget, these people are likely taking a pretty long-range view of things here; when 2010 rolls around and Windows 2000 is no longer supported, things could change fast.