.B.M. and the software company Red Hat plan to announce a multiyear alliance today to greatly expand the range of I.B.M. computers and software products that run on the Linux operating software distributed by Red Hat.
I.B.M. and Red Hat, the leader among the start-ups trying to profit from packaging and supporting the free Linux operating system, also agreed to jointly sell their products and support services to big business customers deploying Linux systems.
Financial details and the exact length of the three separate deals in the alliance package will not be disclosed. But the general terms outline a substantial, if not entirely unexpected, step forward in the Linux assault on the corporate market.
Linux initially became popular among academic and government computer users anxious to avoid the cost of systems based on proprietary software from companies like Sun Microsystems and I.B.M. itself. Big businesses have taken note of the potential cost savings, but have been cautious about whether Linux measures up on other attributes that they consider important, including reliability, the ability to add capacity and compatibility with widely used business software.
The new alliance does not supplant previous I.B.M. commitments to other Linux distributors or Red Hat's cooperative arrangements with I.B.M. rivals. But the closer and broader cooperation between the two companies should help validate Linux in the corporate world, where I.B.M. is the leading provider of both hardware and computer support services, according to Stacey Quandt, an analyst at Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif.
She predicted that the validation will help even Red Hat rivals like SuSE, which offers versions of Linux tailored to a number of I.B.M. computer models that Red Hat has ignored in the past.
