PSA Peugeot Citroen and open source 
software giant Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) have signed a multiyear contract that will deploy the Linux operating system on thousands of company computers that already run Windows.
The French car manufacturing company will install Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop on up to 20,000 of its desktop computers and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on 2,500 of its servers, Novell announced Tuesday at the Solutions Linux 2007 show in Paris.
The announcement coincided with the release of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) new Windows Vista operating system.
Peugeot's decision to roll out Linux may likely be a sign that the company wants to lower corporate IT expenses via open source software.
Peugeot selected Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop because of Novell's open source expertise and collaboration with hardware and application vendors to help support the company's IT requirements. In addition, Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop integrates seamlessly in Peugeot's Windows-based infrastructure, according to a statement by Novell.
Novell did not provide financial details of the contract.
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