Waltham, Mass.-based Novell said it has received a combined 324,000 download requests for its Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop and Server editions since their release one month ago -- with slightly more downloads of the desktop edition, nicknamed SLED 10.

John Dragoon, Novell's chief marketing officer, said the company hopes to convince up to 45 companies and organizations worldwide -- including 15 in North America -- to pilot the SLED 10 desktop in the next 12 months. "Our job is to convert mindshare into market share," he said.

Novell also announced three Suse Linux customer wins, including one take away from arch-rival, Red Hat Inc.

W.S. Badcock Corp., a home furnishings retailer with more than 320 stores in the southeastern part of the United States, is installing Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 in all of its in-store sales terminals.

Mulberry, Fla.-based Badcock, which is replacing all existing instances of Red Hat Linux with Suse, also plans to use Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 to run its point-of-sale store management system on top of IBM xSeries servers managed by Novell's ZENworks software, Novell said.