08.28.08
Novell to Triple Collaborations with Microsoft
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
Having already tripled the number of collaborations with Microsoft, Novell intends to triple them yet again, according to the following new interview with Ron Hovsepian.
It’s going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on.
How long before there is complete overlap?
How long before it makes sense for Microsoft to just buy Novell, which already supports all of its proprietary technologies. Microsoft’s recent moves towards Utah are interesting too (we gave two examples in the past week). █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.