Open source software has made further inroads into Microsoft's heartland this week as both Lenovo and Dell announced Linux-based PCs.

Lenovo, which claims the world's number three PC maker slot, looks to be meeting arch-rival Dell head-on as they become the first two significant market players to announce Linux-based desktop machines.

Lenovo will start shipping Thinkpads pre-loaded with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLES10) in the fourth quarter of this year. The two companies announced the deal this week which includes the ThinkPad T Series, which is aimed at business users, although the products will be available through both business and retail channels.

Lenovo will provide support for the operating system directly, the first time that it's done so, it said, with Novell offering maintenance updates for the system directly to users. Previously, Lenovo had certified Thinkpads for use with Linux, but had not made the OS available directly to its customers. It announced neither pricing nor a specific shipping date.

The announcement came on the first day of the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, which runs until Thursday.

"We have seen more customers utilizing and requesting open source notebook solutions in education, government and the enterprise since our ThinkPad T60p Linux announcement, and today's announcement expands upon our efforts by offering customers more Linux options," said Lenovo spokesman Sam Dusi.

"Known for hardware and software based innovations like our roll cage and ThinkVantage Technologies, we continue our tradition of building the industry's best engineered PCs and delivering excellent customer solutions, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 from Novell."

Dell has announced two consumer PCs in Europe -- the Inspiron 6400n and the Inspiron 530n -- with Ubuntu 7.04 factory installed.

Available now in the U.K., Germany and France, the systems are Dell's first Linux-based PCs that it'll sell outside the U.S. The company said the announcement was a direct result of feedback received via its www.ideastorm.com site. About 30,000 IdeaStorm community members persuaded Dell to offer systems with Linux pre-installed, and more than 100,000 participated in a follow-up survey to help determine customer preferences, including which Linux system to offer initially.

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