Recently, Novell has announced its release of a package deviced for Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and may also be utilized by various IT enterprises. The toolkit is designed to handle software appliances, combining the application, application server, OS, and database into one single component. According to Matt Richards, the director of Novell’s Emerging Technology Marketing, software appliances is the latest way to package softwares. “Users buy one thing, called a software appliance. It makes the buying process easier, it makes the installation process easier.” He said.

The Novell SUSE Appliance Toolkit will allow independent software vendors to increase their productivity. With the help of the toolkit, users will be able to reduce software development time, installation, and costs of maintenance.

“The SUSE Appliance Toolkit  from Novell can can potentially help our business partners deliver IBM Software to their customers, quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively” said Dr. Bob Sutor, the vice president of the Open Source and Linux, IBM Group.

The toolkit is basically an element of the SUSE Appliance Program. The program in itself is geared into building, updating, configuring, and marketing the complete and fully functional softwares. Because of its obvious benefits, there have been thousands of registration for the program ever since its announcement in July of last year. Some of the SUSE Appliance program members include Black Diamond Software, IBM, Adobe, GroundWork Open Source, and others.

According to Markus Rex, Open Platform Solutions vice president and general manager, the SUSE Appliance Toolkit makes it “easier for enterprises and ISV’s to quickly create, deliver and configure tailored, ready to use installations of their applications for physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.”

Features of the SUSE Appliance Toolkit include:

SUSE Studio Onsite – This is a local version of the SUSE Studio Online. Basically, this contains most of the features of the popular SUSE Studio Online but will be provided within a server that is hosted by the data center.

SUSE Lifecycle Management Server – This is used for authentication and access control to make software distribution that much easier.

Support for KIWI – This is a tool for creating appliances.

WebYaST – This is used to enable remote, Web based configuration of the SUSE Linux Enterprise.

Development of applications today are time and resource consuming. Hence, the development of Software Appliances are expected to cause a huge impact in the industry, making it more possible for the industry to improve production.

The toolkit costs around $100,000 for enterprises and free for ISVs who are building a model around Suse Enterprise Linux. The market for the software appliance is expected to grow around 1.1 billion dollars in two years time. Already available in the market, more information about the product can be found in www.novell.com/toolkit or www.novell.com/appliances.