Microsoft Corp., which two years ago agreed to buy and resell $240 million worth of enterprise support subscriptions for Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system, will buy and resell up to another $100 million of vouchers, the two companies said today.
The unusual scenario in which the world's dominant proprietary software vendor is helping to market open-source software such as Linux began in November 2006, when the two former foes agreed to a set of pioneering cross-licensing and interoperability deals, with Microsoft admitting that many of its business customers were also fans of open-source software. Microsoft sold $156 million worth of support vouchers within 18 months to customers such as Wal-Mart, HSBC Holdings, Renault, Southwest Airlines, BMW and others, according to Susan Hauser, general manager of strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft.
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