WALTHAM, Mass., June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Novell today announced a broad range of product license agreements and special offers designed to help Sun Microsystems identity management and Solaris* customers upgrade to equivalent Novell® solutions. Novell is also offering incentive programs for Sun partners to join the Novell PartnerNet® channel community.  As a result, Sun customers and partners now have a financially compelling reason to migrate their identity management and operating system platforms to Novell.

The new Novell programs and offers address concerns raised by recent news that Sun's product catalog, now owned by Oracle, will be substantially scaled back. Additionally, Sun's largest customers will now be routed through a direct support model, leaving Sun partners and resellers in a bind.

"Oracle has left Sun customers and partners out in the cold," said Justin Steinman, vice president of solution and product marketing at Novell.  "Many Sun customers are questioning the plans Oracle has for the former Sun products.  If Sun customers are concerned about the future of Solaris, then they can now migrate to SUSE Linux Enterprise.  If Sun customers are concerned about the future roadmap for Sun's identity management products, then they can now migrate to Novell Identity Manager 4 – the only identity solution to manage identities in physical, virtual and cloud environments.  And if you're a former Sun partner, then you may be interested in establishing a new relationship with a company like Novell, who is deeply committed to the partner channel."

Novell Identity and Security Offers

With these new offers, Sun customers with a perpetual license can now swap their products with a Novell equivalent for free.  This means Sun customers can get Novell's award winning, highly interoperable identity and security solutions for only the cost of maintenance. The following license swaps are available:

• Sun Identity Manager customers receive Novell Identity Manager, Novell Roles Based Provisioning Module and Novell Enterprise Integration Module  
• Sun Role Manager customers receive Novell Access Governance Suite
• Sun Open SSO customers receive Novell Access Manager™
• Sun Directory Server EE customers receive Novell eDirectory™

For more information, go to http://www.novell.com/promo/ext/sun_offers.html

"The scalability and flexibility of Novell's identity and security products allowed us to implement a solution to fit the complex business requirements of our customers," said Bryan Rembold, consulting practice manager, GCA Technology Services. "Novell solutions interface with a variety of applications and can be deployed across a large and highly distributed enterprise in a timeframe much faster than our experience with other identity management products."

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Offers

Novell is also offering special incentives to Sun* Solaris customers to migrate to SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server, the industry's leading operating system for mission-critical workloads in physical, virtual and cloud environments.  For a limited time, Solaris customers that purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions can get free training designed for Solaris administrators, unlimited virtual guest support and migration assistance. Qualified customers can also receive free Solaris-to-Linux migration assessments, as well as a trial version of PlateSpin® Recon Inventory Edition - a tool to help analyze their Solaris systems and determine the ideal migration plan.

For more information on the Solaris-to-Linux migration offer, go to www.novell.com/solaris  

Novell PartnerNet Offers

For Sun channel partners, Novell PartnerNet offers a robust partner program focused on profitability and growth. Novell PartnerNet has profit incentives such as automatic Gold Partner membership status and support programs for migration to Novell solutions. Additionally, the Novell PartnerNet offers a suite of enablement materials to help Sun channel partners quickly acquire Novell solution knowledge and expertise. For more information go to: http://www.novell.com/communities/Sun_Swap

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL), a leader in Intelligent Workload Management, helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.  We help customers reduce the cost, complexity, and risk associated with their IT systems through our solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux based operating platforms. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com .  

Novell, the Novell logo, the N logo, PlateSpin and SUSE are registered trademarks, PartnerNet is a registered service mark, and Access Manager and eDirectory are trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries.  *All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Novell, Inc.