Although they haven't yet reached the dizzying heights of the 3 million plus downloads of Office 2007 Beta 2, 165,000 downloads of either the server or desktop versions of Suse Linux Enterprise 10 since July 18 is nothing to sneeze at.

However, given the build up of this product, the number could also be viewed as a little disappointing.

Novell has touted SLED 10, the desktop version of its new Linux product, as the Windows Vista killer, and believes the late release of Vista has opened a window of opportunity for SLED 10 to gain traction in the market.

On the server side, Novell is looking to Suse Linux Enterprise to give the company a product that can win share from its rival, number one Linux player Red Hat, as well as Microsoft.

For recently appointed CEO Ron Hovsepian, the success of Suse Linux Enterprise is critical to the company, as well as his career. He has reportedly been given as little as six months to turn the company's flagging fortunes around. {moscomment}