Novell is betting that its upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 will drive widespread business adoption of its Linux desktop, especially as it brings features like integrated desktop search, which is not yet found in its largest competitor, Microsoft's Windows.

Executives from Novell, based in Waltham, Mass., are in Germany for the annual CeBIT trade show, where they will be talking about the new desktop, due out this summer.

The desktop has also been renamed and rebranded from the current Novell Linux Desktop 10 moniker to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, said Greg Mancusi-Ungaro, a director of Linux and open source at Novell. While he declined to give specific pricing details, Mancusi-Ungaro said that much movement was unlikely from the current price of $50 per system a year for its Novell Linux Desktop 9.

Until now, the biggest issues IT administrators faced around the Linux desktop were overall desktop usability, connectivity to collaboration, the productivity applications at its core and its ability to be deployed and managed by IT. "We have a made a big investment in getting over all of those hurdles," he said.

The desktop now includes the Beagle search engine, which has been made an integral part of the user interface, essentially changing the desktop paradigm away from a file hierarchical organization to one where the user is only bound by the limit of concept and keyword, he said.

"Users can type a keyword and all of the content in their personal workspace—whether its documents, images, recently visited Web sites or IM chats—is presented to you in an easily navigable window," Mancusi-Ungaro said.