Financial Firms Tap Microsoft for Linux
By Jay Lyman
LinuxInsider
12/22/06 4:00 AM PT
Three major financial institutions are among the first companies to go to Microsoft for Linux services, provided through an agreement the software giant struck with Novell. Although a recent survey showed customer approval of the collaboration, many members of the open source community view Novell's move as sleeping with the devil.
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Although the customer wins are a more substantial sign of support for the partnership than a survey released last week, skepticism in the open source community persists, with Novell's Jeremy Allison, a key Samba project developer, announcing his departure from Novell because of the Microsoft pact.
Favoring Flexibility
Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian, who has countered contentions that the
patent agreement with Microsoft suggests any concession that Microsoft
intellectual property is incorporated in Linux, called the customer moves so soon after the Nov. 2 announcement "proof points" of the wisdom of the companies' joint
collaboration.
"We see both Windows and Suse Linux as strategic platforms going
forward, and we're very pleased to see Microsoft and Novell, who support
these platforms, step up and work on interoperability," said Credit
Suisse Chief Information Officer Tom Sanzone. "This is a great model,
because it provides a bridge to connect the open source and proprietary
software 
to benefit customers."
Linux Leanings Key
It is no secret that IT customers are using both Windows and Linux, want
more integrated support and interoperability, and would like to remove
or mitigate IP issues whenever possible, Interarbor Solutions Principal
Analyst Dana Gardner told LinuxInsider.
However, he noted that it is too soon to tell how successful Microsoft and
Novell will be pitching their partnership to IT users -- most of whom are
not concerned about the prospect of legal action from Redmond against
Linux users.
"What's more telling is whether this arrangement between Microsoft
and Novell steers customers away from other Linux distributions,"
Gardner said.
Light on Details
The announcement of major financial firms as customers is promising, but
is not necessarily a harbinger of things to come, Gartner (NYSE: IT) 
Vice President
George Weiss told LinuxInsider.
"I wanted to talk to the CIOs [involved] to find out exactly what has
been promised," he said, "because mainly, it's promises at this stage."
With no interoperability road map from the two
companies, the significance of the announced customer deals is
decreased, he pointed out, adding that "real announcements speak for themselves."
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