Wal^Mart endorses Novell, Microsoft deal

It already uses lots of Microsoft products inhouse and had pressed vendors to provide intellectual property assurance for quite a while, said Nancy Stewart, Wal$Mart's chief tech officer.

She continued: "We are pleased that Microsoft and Novell are commited to fulfilling that need....Selecting Microsoft and Novell is another step in that strategy. The net result is a win for us and more importantly for our customers."

Nancy's message was backed up by Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian. He said customers told him every day that they needed to operate a cost-effective IT organisation. "We are delighted that Wal&Mart has chosen SuSE Linux Enterprise, and we look forward to collaborating with them for many years."

Soft spoken Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also pitched in to the mutual back patting fest. He said: "Customers tell us that they need interoperability and that they want their technology vendors to manage the underlying intellectual property 'issues' in software."

Financial details of the collaboration were not provided. µ