IBM, Suse lower Linux prices for blades

IBM plans to announce a new price structure for running Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server software on Big Blue's blade servers. Instead of being charged per blade server, customers can buy a license for the entire chassis, which holds as many as 14 blades, for a starting price of $2,792 per year. In some cases, the overall price is about half the earlier cost, IBM said.

The pricing applies whether the blades use processors from Intel, IBM or AMD. IBM wouldn't comment on whether it planned such partnerships with Red Hat, the dominant Linux seller, but spokesman Tim Willeford said, "We will be looking at other industry possibilities."