Computer giant IBM has linked up with Novell to take a bite out of the open source application server market.

The deal, which was announced at yesterday's opening of LinuxWorld in San Francisco, will see Novell deliver and support WebSphere Application Server Community Edition as part of Suse Linux Enterprise Server.

IBM said it wanted to offer business customers an alternative option to avoid them falling into high costs by relying on a single vendor such as Microsoft.

It said the open collaboration client comes loaded with features that include email, calendar, and word processing.

IBM said in a statement: "With this open client businesses can save up to $300-$500 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 deal will also open up opportunities for Novell and IBM to expand their customer base and sales teams.

Senior Novell vice president Roger Levy said:

"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."

More from IBM here (http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22008.wss). ®

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