Novell and Microsoft pairing up

Now, who saw this one coming? Microsoft and Novell will be collaborating with each other, and the results are going to be pleasing for those looking for better Windows integration on their SUSE box. Here is a quote from yesterdays letter from Ron Hovsepian, the CEO of Novell: “Specifically, customers will now be able to run virtualized SUSE Linux Enterprise on Windows or Windows on SUSE Linux Enterprise.”

That about spells it out. But is it all good? There is a lot of speculation as to how much this will actually help Novell or Linux in general. Microsoft is obviously not one to jump at the opportunity to help a competitor, so what exactly are we going to see from this? As always, things are going to get very interesting. You can read the full press release regarding this on Microsofts site. You can also see a quick article about the potential side effects to this agreement here.