Microsoft Linux move with Novell is perfect storm

Stan Beer
Saturday, 04 November 2006 03:44

Opinion and Analysis

Analysts are running around like beheaded chickens trying to make sense of a world gone mad. Microsoft has agreed to collaborate with a company that has recently sued it for more than half a billion dollars and has outstanding antitrust lawsuits against it in process. Yet the collaboration strangely seems to make sense.

Novell is a software company from the Microsoft era which relatively recently took a gamble and sailed into the open source Linux space. The company still makes money from its Windows-based Netware and Groupwise businesses. However, it is very much a runner up to Red Hat in the Linux market.

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian was given the top job at the company in June and reportedly given six months to turn the company's flagging fortunes around. Hovsepian, known as a super salesman, told iTWire in July that Novell was losing customers going to Microsoft who did’t want to make the migration to Linux.

A major obstacle to Linux migration has seemingly been taken away now that Microsoft has undertaken not to take legal action against companies wishing to integrate Microsoft technology with Novell's Suse Linux.

The question needs to be asked, however, what's in it for Microsoft. CEO Steve Ballmer himself answered that question when he said straight out that Microsoft would do its best to try to persuade customers to embrace an all Windows solution.

However, Microsoft didn't get to be the largest software company in the world by luck. Forever the pragmatist, Microsoft has seen the writing the writing on the wall. Enterprises will use best of breed solutions wherever possible and for many solutions on the server side, especially those involving virtualization, Linux beats Windows.

Microsoft has been publicly fighting the battle against Linux. However, privately two and a half years ago, when the software company appointed Linux guru Bill Hilf as general manager of platform strategy, Microsoft has been positioning itself to take advantage of the trend to Linux in the server space.

In an interview with iTwire, Hilf poured scorn on the suggestion that Linux would present a threat to Windows on the desktop. However, the server is a different story. Linux has advantages over Windows in the server space - not least its superior virtualization capabilities.

Thus, Microsoft knew two years ago or more that it would someday have to learn to coexist with Linux and open source. The time has now come for a perfect storm in which Mcrosoft can make its move. Linux leader Red Hat has been weakened by Oracle's move to compete with it for support customers. Novell's Hovsepian is under pressure to produce the goods in a year where the company has not made any significant impression on its main competitor in the Linux space.

Microsoft reaching out to its former bitter rival and Novell taking the bait may be the perfect opporunity for Microsoft and Novell to salvage their fortunes and capitalize on a market where no one can yet claim to be a dominant player.