Gateway Opts for SuSE Linux on Servers

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

PC desktop and wannabe commercial server maker Gateway has announced that it has chosen commercial Linux distributor SuSE as its preferred supplier of Linux on its servers. Up until now, Gateway's Linux customers had to do special bids of Linux machines, but now they can get SuSE Linux Standard Server 8 and Linux Enterprise Server 8 pre-installed on their machines.

The deal inked between SuSE and Gateway also calls for Gateway to provide a single point of contact for installation and technical support for its servers running SuSE Linux, with SuSE providing Level 3 tech support for the toughest and weirdest problems. This deal mirrors similar arrangement that Hewlett-Packard has forged with Red Hat and SuSE in recent months.

Gateway will bundle SuSE Enterprise Linux 8 as an option alongside Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 on its model 955 and 975 two-way Xeon DP servers and model 995 four-way Xeon MP rack-mounted servers. Linux will also be available on preconfigured model 960 two-way Xeon DP and four-way model 980 Xeon MP tower servers. Gateway has been bundling Red Hat 9.0 on some of its servers, but Red Hat has just killed that product line in favor of its enterprise Linux Enterprise 3.0 line, which is based on the beefed-up Linux Advanced Server implementation of the Linux 2.4 kernel. It is unclear if Gateway will ink a similar deal with Red Hat, but clearly it would like to so it can cover its bases. SuSE Linux Standard Server 8 will be available on smaller machines in the product line as well as these machines.

The Linux push by Gateway is part of a renewed focus on the enterprise market, where the struggling company hopes to wring some bigger profits out of its product line and to get a little breathing space. Since its founding almost two decades ago, Gateway has been a significant factor in driving price/performance on the desktop and was the first big direct seller of PCs in the United States. Dell's aggressive moves on the desktop in both the commercial and consumer markets and IBM's and Hewlett-Packard's dominance of the commercial PC space have made it tough for Gateway to grow as some of its competitors have in recent years.

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