IBM and Novell strengthened their long-standing partnership after announcing the two companies agreed to a new application server agreement which Novell hopes will offer an edge over Red Hat Jboss and Microsoft Exchange.  The latest collaboration was announced during the first official day of the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.

Specifically, Novell will offer support for the WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE) as part of SuSe Linux Enterprise Server.  During a press conference yesterday, both companies said they will be helping users migrate away from Jboss.

“Customers today are looking for an integrated solution to solve their application development needs,” said Roger Levy, senior vice president of Novell's Open Platform Solutions.

“I am not sure how they (Red Hat and Microsoft) will respond, but I am sure they will,” said a LinuxWorld attendee after the press conference.

IBM also announced during the press conference that WAS CE – an open source application server offered by IBM – has been downloaded more than one million times.

“By teaming with Novell, we're able to provide customers around the world with unmatched open source technologies and support,” said Tom Rosamilia, IBM Application and Integration Middleware general manager.

Along with the server partnership, Novell and IBM made an announcement regarding the desktop market.  Novell SuSe Linux Enterprise Desktop users will now have access to the IBM Lotus Notes groupware, several productivity tools and the Lotus Sametime instant messaging program.