This is one of those times where if you’d told me this 5 years ago, I’d have laughed until my ribs broke.
In case you missed it, Microsoft and Novell have announced a strategic partnership to promote and support each others products.
How it all came about, we may never know. But I do have a suspicion. A while back, Microsoft announced that they had found Linux distributions had infringed on Microsoft’s Intellectual Property (IP) rights. This didn’t surprise me, especially after hearing Mark Russinovich’s presentation on how Linux compares with Windows. Mark goes on to describe how the Linux developers constantly added new features to compare with advantages that Mark was point out that Windows had. Microsoft said they were investigating on how to reconcile this. Options included nailing the authors of the code (usually someone living in their parent’s basement – just kidding!) or suing enterprises who were using the offending products.
A major part of the announcement from this partnership is that Microsoft will not pursue anyone who is using Novell’s SUSE Linux product range. Out of this, Microsoft will receive royalties from Novell on license sales. Novell don’t make too much from licensing so this won’t be an issue for them. They aim to make money from support and services contracts. This agreement also appears to include Novell subsidiaries such as a product called Mono, a Linux clone of .NET. It was also stated that Microsoft will not pursue authors of open source code that infringes on their IP rights. If you read between the lines this would mean that CIO’s better start adding some $’s to their budget.
On a side note, Microsoft is extremely unlikely to send lawyers in to their "big 500" clients, i.e. the people who drive the design and sales of Microsoft’s products. It would be even less unlikely they would pursue the smaller fish. However, this is just a gut feeling and not a legal opinion.
So that’s the IP stuff out of the way. What does the rest of the agreement include?
- Both companies will work on web services interoperability. This sounds like Microsoft will work with Novell on their Mono product, the aforementioned .NET clone.
- They will work together on server management. This could include Operations Manager 2007 management packs for SUSE, WS mangement, or maybe some ZENworks interoperability.
- Mangement of Virtual Machines. Maybe these are VM additions for SUSE on Virtual Server, the "Longhorn" hypervisor or Virtual PC 2007. It could include the Microsoft/Xen partnership. It may even include Virtual Machine Manager that is currently in beta.
- OpenOffice file format (OpenXML) compatibility with Office 2007. This was already something that some governments were trying to get in Office 2007. Microsoft will aim to have seamless compatibility between Office 2007 and OpenOffice.
- Microsoft will issue 70,000 * 1 year maintenance agreeements for SUSE Linux.
What’s the big picture? Microsoft had already been working on Linux interoperability. OM 2007 was already going to have WS support and 3rd parties already provide Linux agents and management packs. Companies like Quest already provide SMS clients for Linux. Microsoft already had a relationship with XEN for a virtualisation solution for both Linux and Windows. However, Microsoft is now openly supporting SUSE Linux.
This alliance a visible acceptance that however good Microsoft thinks Windows is (and I think it is the best network server product out there) Linux has a justified place on an enterprise network. Microsoft will expand it’s management to include SUSE. But don’t think this is a generosity thing. Microsoft will get paid for the usage of their IP if you deploy SUSE. So even if you think you’re screwing Bill out of yet another ivory back scratcher when you go open source with SUSE, you’ll be wrong.
What’s there for the CIO signing the checks? They still have the choice of going open source. They will get support and interoperability. They will be dealing with a mature and well accepted company in Novell. And they will also feel like they are on a safer legal ground if they purchase SUSE products instead of some other Linux product.