Security news and products; more customer momentum around the Microsoft-Novell agreement.

Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies today became some of the first customers to tap the benefits of the recently announced collaboration between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. on interoperability between Microsoft Windows and Linux. Under three separate customer agreements, Microsoft will deliver to each company SUSE Linux Enterprise subscription certificates, allowing these customers to take advantage of the Microsoft and Novell agreement. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and AIG Technologies, which is a member company of American International Group Inc., highlighted the benefits of interoperability, the patent cooperation agreement and the road map for bidirectional virtualization solutions as the deciding factors in their choice.

Deutsche Bank, already a significant user of Novell and Microsoft products, was pleased that the collaboration would improve interoperability among various systems. "Employing both Windows and Linux in our company always seemed the right thing to do, but making the systems work together would require a significant amount of time and resources," said Clemens Jochum, chief technology officer of Deutsche Bank AG. "Microsoft and Novell's agreement gives us the benefit of choice of platforms and tremendous flexibility that will help make our company more competitive and efficient."

"For us, interoperability is key," said Tom Sanzone, chief information officer at Credit Suisse. "We see both Windows and SUSE Linux as strategic platforms going forward, and we're very pleased to see Microsoft and Novell, who support these platforms, step up and work on interoperability. This is a great model because it provides a bridge to connect the open source and proprietary software to benefit customers. We commend the two companies for taking this step." "It's critical that our technology offerings be forward-looking, integrated and positioned to support our mission of delivering high value at market price," said Mark Popolano, global chief information officer for AIG. "Microsoft and Novell's commitment to working together to deliver interoperability and IP assurance helps us achieve that mission. Our goal of engaging in this pilot program is to explore how we can become a more flexible organization."

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