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Accounting for different operating systems over virtualisation can be a chore for independent software developers 

Microsoft’s iconic status and indeed Bill Gates’s phenomenal personal wealth are monuments to the pivotal role that the operating system has played in computing to date.

The much-analysed chain of events that led to the initial success of its Disk Operating System laid the foundations for the console-manufacturing, advertisement-brokering company that Microsoft is today.

But the advent of virtualisation has introduced a conceptual challenge to the all-surpassing significance of the OS. When applications designed for one operating system can be quite simply deployed on another, the OS no longer seems like the quarterback of the software stack it once was.

A new service that systems vendor Novell is now offering independent software vendors (ISVs) demonstrates that this is not a purely theoretical concern. Developers that sign up to its SuSE Linux Appliance Program will be given the tools and, perhaps more importantly, the support necessary to convert its applications into so-called virtual appliances.

The technological component allows applications to be deployed with a preinstalled cut-down version of SuSE Linux, Novell’s version of the open source operating system.

That cutdown OS links to any of the dominant hypervisors (VMware, Microsoft or Xen), so the application can execute in any virtual environment without having to take the local operating system into account.

Although it might sound conceptually esoteric, the use case Novell is proposing – at first at least – is in fact rather quotidian.

“When we talked to ISVs, we found that about 50% of support calls concerned improperly installed software,” explains Nat Freidman, CTO for open source at the company.

The chance of improper installation is smaller with virtual appliances, he says: “There are millions of applications and operating systems out there, but there are a limited number of hypervisor vendors. The interface between the operating system and the virtual machine is much more manageable than that between the application and the operating system.”

The Appliance program also allows ISVs to build simple software appliances – applications that run directly off a CD or USB device without installation – and this functionality has a similarly prosaic use.

“[A software appliance] can dramatically simplify the sales cycle,” says Freidman. “It means they don’t have to send in a consultant if they want to install a demo of their application in a client’s environment.”

For now, the ISV community is the target of this technology and service offering, which Novell is using a royalty model to charge for. But Freidman hopes enterprise IT departments will feel the benefits.

“We hope it will be a welcome relief to IT departments, who spend time and money on installation issues,” he says.

Ironically, relieving IT departments’ installation overheads might make them more likely to upgrade operating systems. With Microsoft readying Windows 7 – its latest attempt to bring about an OS refresh – virtualisation may yet prove to be the operating system’s saving grace.