North Rhine-Westphalia has selected Novell for the supply of its IT infrastructure. Novell already supports 300,000 students in the states of Bavaria and Thuringia; the new deal will add another 560,000 students and thousands of employees. It’s not clear how many of the students actually will use the desktop Linux software.
The larger North Rhine-Westphalia contract will see the region’s universities using Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, along with Suse Linux Enterprise Server, Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell Identity Manager and Novell ZENworks. Forty percent of all German students now use Linux systems, according to Novell. The company said the universities chose its Linux offerings to deliver cost savings and flexibility, while avoiding vendor lock-in.
The deals are among the largest Linux migrations taking place in the European public sector.
Source: CNET News.com