Turbolinux announced it has joined the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA). The IVA is an industry-wide group sharing the common goal of making technologies work better together with Microsoft systems for customers.

With increasing demands for products that support business objectives and lower total cost of ownership, IT managers need solutions to seamlessly enhance connectivity between Windows and Linux IT environments. As a Linux distributor in Asia, Turbolinux joined the IVA in providing real interoperability solutions to customers with mixed IT environments. The joint solutions, such as single sign-on, will help customers reduce the cost and complexity of running mixed Windows and Linux systems.

“Microsoft is pleased that Turbolinux has joined the Interop Vendor Alliance,” said Sam Rosenbalm, Interop Vendor Alliance manager, Microsoft Corporation. “We are very excited about collaborating with Turbolinux to build a bridge between open source and commercial technologies that benefits the entire IT ecosystem.”

Microsoft Corporation and Turbolinux signed a business agreement in October that addresses customer issues, furthered Linux-Windows interoperability and R&D collaboration, and provided IP assurances to Turbolinux users. Taking part in the IVA, Turbolinux will provide solutions which greatly enhance Linux-Window Server interoperability by developing some modules that enable Turbolinux products to work more seamlessly with Active Directry and the Windows networking environment.

“Joining the IVA is an important component of our partnership with Microsoft and will allow us to start solution development and testing,” said Yano Koichi, CEO of Turbolinux. “Working collaboratively with Microsoft, we are eager to deliver the solutions as soon as we can to the market.”

Turbolinux will organize a research and development lab with the cooperation of Microsoft and will use the lab to focus on developing, testing and providing Linux and Window Server interoperability solutions for customers and partners.