| Microsoft does patent deal with Xandros Linux |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 05 June 2007 | |
  
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Microsoft said that they, and Xandros, had announced a “broad collaboration agreement based on a set of technical, business, marketing and intellectual property commitments”. Just as with the Novell deal, Microsoft says customers will get “enhanced interoperability, more effective systems management solutions, and intellectual property assurances, all of which extend a bridge between open source and commercial software and deliver customers real value in mixed systems environments”. Andreas Typaldos, the CEO of Xandros said in a statement that: “Companies today are running a mixture of Linux and Windows systems. Cross-platform data centers are a reality. To meet evolving customer needs, vendors need to recognize the value of sharing intellectual property, developing more interoperable solutions, and providing management tools that are familiar and easy to use.” Quite what Novell thinks about the deal is as yet unknown, but Microsoft paints it in a long line of collaborations with “Linux platform and open source software providers”. Microsoft points to Novell, JBoss, XenSource, Samsung, Zend and others. Bill Hilf, the GM of Platform Strategy at Microsoft said that “Customers win when their platform providers build collaborative relationships. We have been working with commercial open source companies to deliver better value to our customers in areas like server interoperability, systems management and office document formats. We believe in and encourage respect for all licensing and development models, and intellectual property is an important component in this environment. Our announcement with Xandros is an exciting step to deliver what our mutual customers have been asking for.” The deal covers systems management interoperability, server operability, office document compatibility, the all important intellectual property assurance, with a promise from Microsoft not to sue Xandros customers and also Microsoft sales and marketing support, all as with Novell, although there is no mention of Microsoft buying Xandros coupons as they did when the Microsoft/Novell deal included Microsoft buying millions of dollars worth of vouchers to redistribute and sell to Microsoft’s existing customers. {moscomment} |
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