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Meet the Windows Server 2008 robot
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There were a number of small earthquakes reported in Utah a week and a half ago. Most commentators attributed them to the earth shifting along fault lines, but one or two of us thought it might be Ray Noorda spinning in his grave. After all, according to the book “Bad Boy Ballmer”, by Fredric Alan Maxwell, Ray once referred to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as "the Pearly Gates and the Emballmer: one promises you heaven, the other prepares you for the grave."
On Nov. 2 the “Emballmer” stood on stage with Ray’s successor, Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian, and shook hands on a deal that was so unexpected that there were widely scattered reports of snowball fights in Hades.
Microsoft, it seems, was giving Novell a basketful of money in return for “coupons” good for SuSE Linux subscriptions and support which Microsoft could distribute as it saw fit – sell them, give them away, or simply build a bonfire.
The two companies would also collaborate on virtualization of each other’s operating systems – Windows and Linux running in virtual sessions on top of either Linux or Windows. There would also be collaboration that would more closely align Microsoft’s Office productivity formats with the open source world’s OpenDoc format.
A third component of the deal was some intellectual property mumbo-jumbo: Microsoft promised not to sue some open source programmers should they inadvertently infringe Redmond’s patent rights. And Novell promised not to sue Microsoft.
Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be found at Virtual Quill.
Kearns is the author of two Network World Newsletters: Windows Networking Strategies, and Identity Management. Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these respective addresses: windows@vquill.com, identity@vquill.com .
Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail.
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