The Microsoft Novell Linux Alliance
2 November 2006According to a story just put up on the WSJ, this afternoon Microsoft and Novell will announce a new alliance, based upon the idea that MS will provide sales suppport for Novell’s SuSE Linux, with the further promise that the two companies will work together to ensure intercompatibility for Windows and Linux running together. Finally, MS will not enforce any patent right claims against SuSE Linux.
The meaning of this move seems pretty clear to me, although we’ll see if more details come out with the actual press conference: this is a blocking move against Oracle, which a few days ago announced it would provide sales and support for Red Hat Linux.
I suspect Microsoft, which is not dominant in the server world, has decided the growth pace of Windows server is not enough to protect SQL Server and other server-based products (Exchange, Live extensions, etc.) going forward, now that Oracle is in the game.
While many people focus on Google as MS’ top competitor, that’s a consumer game; Oracle is a much greater threat, from the perspective of dominance in both database and now, suddenly, server operating systems (Linux/Unix variants dominate this platform).
You can almost feel Ray Ozzie’s hand in this decision. The next question will be: will MS actually release products running on Linux? My bet is that this is the question of the moment at MS, and will be heatedly discussed for the next couple of years.
5 Responses to “The Microsoft Novell Linux Alliance”
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:18 pm
[...] Mark Anderson: “While many people focus on Google as MS’ top competitor, that’s a consumer game; Oracle is a much greater threat, from the perspective of dominance in both database and now, suddenly, server operating systems.” [...]
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Mark,
As long time subscriber of SNS I am delighted to have your blog on my newsreader.
Great move. Always great insight.
Lance
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:02 am
To be a fly on the wall of those Microsoft meetings today talking about putting out future products on Linux…
Long ago when IBM was faced with a decision whether or not to support UNIX (AIX) on the mainframe they decided that they “had to do it” although they correctly surmized that very few customers would actually run it although almost all would insist that they support it.
Microsoft might take the same logical path over time to say that they do support running Exchange, SQL Server, and Office on Linux knowing that almost nobody would really want to do it.
Part of it is making the MS alternative much more attractive and the other part is who would want to pay up for Office or Exchange if you are committed to running Linux as your server OS?
I also wonder if the Open Source community is starting to feel a little too “embraced and extended?”
November 4th, 2006 at 1:53 am
[...] A grande d??vida, claro, ?© se a Microsoft ir?° se dedicar a produzir algum produto para Linux, ou simplesmente se aproveitar?° da m?£o de obra gratuita de um bando de programadores open source. Tamb?©m ser?° interessante ver o efeito desta coopera?ß?£o em um mundo onde qualquer coisa com c??digo propriet?°rio costuma ser vista com desconfian?ßa, embora a Novell j?° esteja acostumada, visto que o SuSE ?© mal quisto pela comunidade por utilizar fontes e drivers propriet?°rios. [...]
November 22nd, 2006 at 7:09 am
Belatedly catching up with the blog – hola!
I think virtualisation is the current MS approach to Linux; I did enjoy the stories of SteveB staggering around the rehearsal stage in mock horror at the sight of Linux in a VPC on screen. And MS shamefully undersells the Services For Unix on Server 2003 which make it essentially a Linux distribution. But what about the IP threats now showing up in SteveB’s comments about Linux users? If MS does a SCO they will regret it, sooner or later…