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For its part IBM is to open up nine IBM Innovation Centers in North America, Europe and Asia to enable products to be certified quickly for the SUSE Linux on IBM hardware and software.

'The momentum behind Linux is growing daily,' said IBM's Buell Duncan, general manager of ISV and Developer Relations. 'To date, more than 6,000 Linux-based applications have been developed on IBM, 2,000 of which come from ISVs. IBM has a goal to double that number in the next two years.'

Many Linux vendors are looking to create a competitive advantage to their offerings by having more value 'higher up the stack' - ie selling on the basis of a dedicated application rather than on the now standard cheaper, more reliable and more secure Linux mantra. Hence the likes of Red Hat launching its own application server in August of

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last year, while Novell is putting more and more of its weight behind the JBoss rival.

Wood Lotz, CEO, Absoft Corporation offered this testimonial to the growing importance of Linux at an application level. 'Over the past few years, Linux has transformed from a niche operating system to a mainstream solution that customers are increasingly deploying in their existing IT environments,' he said. 'The SUSE LINUX ISV certification program is an important milestone in the long-term success of open source solutions and represents an opportunity for us and our customers to utilize the very best hardware, software, and support from IBM and Novell in an expedient way to take advantage of the growing Linux market. Gaining access to the technical resources and knowledge of experts at IBM Innovation Centers to test mission-critical applications on Linux further gives solution providers the confidence they need to deploy Linux strategically in complex customer environments," said Lotz.

IBM says its Linux division has experienced double digit growth last year and last month announced it was to pour $100mn over the next three years into that strategy. Its interest in Linux has long been apparent though: in 2001 it promised to invest $1bn, with a further $3bn to follow. It also helped out Novell with $50mn when it bought second-placed Linux distro SUSE and donated 500 patents to the open source community.