Microsoft and Novell did, in truth, announce a collaborative partnership offer, as anticipated,
Office Home And Business 2010 32bit, on November two. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer emphasized throughout his remarks in the course of the press conference announcing the deal that Novell and Microsoft have already been discussing the particulars for months. But there's no way anyone can tell me that this offer isn't all about Oracle. It's now a Microsoft-Novell vs. Oracle-Red Hat face-off. (Keep in mind, Red Hat is a hostile — yet smiling — participant in this contest.)Still doubtful? Buried in Microsoft's Novell-collaboration press release is this maintenance services nugget:"Microsoft will distribute coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support, so that customers can benefit from the use of an interoperable version of Linux with patent coverage,
Office 2010 Home And Business 64bit, as well as the collaborative work between the two companies."Update: I had a chance to ask about the Oracle elephant, following the press conference where Microsoft announced the Novell partnership. Bill Hilf,
Microsoft Office 2010 Home And Business, general manager of Microsoft's platform strategy (and Linux point-man), denied that the Oracle-Red Hat announcement had any bearing on Microsoft's partnership with Novell."We were on a path to get here all along,
Microsoft Office Professional 2010 Product Key," Hilf said. Microsoft wouldn't be agile enough to so quickly organize such a counter-event, Hilf joked.Justin Steinman,
Microsoft Office 2010 Sale, director of marketing for Novell Linux, conceded a bit more:The Red Hat-Oracle offer "might have acccelerated (our announcement with Microsoft) by a couple of days." But Novell had been talking with Microsoft since April 2006 about some type of partnership, he emphasized.Me? I still think today's offer is still at least 99 percent about Oracle.