Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | InfoWorld | Peugeot Citroen drives SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop | January 30, 2007 07:54 AM

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Peugeot Citroen drives SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

January 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Peugeot Citroen drives SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

Novell has answered my challenge. In what I think is the biggest Linux desktop deal ever done on this planet, Novell has announced that Peugeot Citroen is rolling out SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop in a big way.

Here's the news:

PSA Peugeot Citroen, the second-largest automobile manufacturer in Europe, and Novell just signed a multiyear contract allowing the deployment of up to 20,000 Linux desktops plus 2,500 Linux servers from Novell.

"We found SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop to be well supported and extremely user friendly," said an IT representative for PSA Peugeot Citroen. "Novell's commitment to open source and close collaboration with leading hardware and application vendors to ensure the support of our IT requirements were key factors in our choice. In addition, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop integrates seamlessly in our Windows-based infrastructure."

This is bigger than the Wal-Mart news, and arguably bigger news than the Red Hat/Union Bank news.

Why? Because it's the desktop. Everyone is running Linux on the server. Roughly 100% of the Fortune 500. But the Linux desktop? And 20,000 of them? That's huge.

Great work, Novell. This is exactly the sort of news and momentum I like to see. It's not about legal maneuvering. It's about delivering customer value. My quick back-of-the-envelope calculation is that this deal will save Peugeot Citroën in the millions of dollars, while delivering equivalent or better performance/functionality/etc. That's millions that will go into making great cars.

Posted by Matt Asay on January 30, 2007 07:54 AM

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COMMENTS

The deal is good in a number of ways. Other large companies with their upgrade cycle due soon will be taking a close look at the results, and some will follow in Peugeot Citroen footsteps when they see the cost saving and reliability of Linux.

It's this sort of deal that will finally make the hardware manufacturers take notice and start building decent Linux drivers, or open their specs for OSS developers to write them.

And a fair percentage of those 20,000 desktop users will switch to using Linux at home as well. This could have a massive snowball effect.

Posted by: Rob Simpson at February 5, 2007 11:31 AM

I doubt whether this will be a Linux Revolution: http://loekb.blogspot.com/2007/02/french-linux-revolution.html. However, it is a very interesting case, having Linux next to Vista in a desktop environment.
@Rob: drivers are the smallest problem for mainstream adoption of desktop Linux. The biggest problem is the massive amount of applications that will only run on Windows. Therefore, SaaS and Web 2.0 (or browser-based) apps could enable the breakthrough of Linux on the desktop.

Posted by: Loek at February 7, 2007 10:57 PM

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