Microsoft, Novell reported in Linux accord

[Jesse Stay]

On Nov 2, 2006, at 11:03 PM, Levi Pearson wrote:
> You must be looking at this through some weird, distorted Free  
> Software glasses or something.  Clearly Open Document is Betamax  
> and Microsoft's new Open XML standard is VHS.  Betamax vs. VHS was  
> all about market share, and in the real world, Microsoft is still  
> king there.
>
> And whatever happened to variety and choice being good?  Or is that  
> only true when Microsoft isn't creating the variety?

I'll have to agree with Levi here.  While I prefer not to have  
Windows, I work for a small division of a large company that is  
predominantly Microsoft.  The division I work for runs all Linux,  
desktop and all.  The larger company doesn't know what to do with us  
- they have to allow us to use Linux because that is what we develop  
on, but they have no way of managing those Linux machines with the  
Microsoft systems they manage the network with.  With Microsoft  
working with Novell to provide ActiveDirectory, sales support  
directly from Microsoft for Linux that can go right along side the  
Windows licenses my company buys, and even rumors of MS Office to be  
released for Linux (with ActiveDirectory integration, I can easily  
see an MS Outlook for Linux), my division now has a way to integrate  
with the rest of the company.  I think the larger company will have  
an easier and cheaper way to transition to using Linux in other ways  
as well.  I feel while I'm sure MS is giving up some desktop share  
for this move, they are still gaining in the MS Office realm, and  
allowing more MS servers to be bought due to one strength they do  
have which is ActiveDirectory.  However, I feel this really benefits  
Linux, perhaps even more in that it will allow large companies to  
better integrate with Linux on the desktop.  If anything, Linux may  
finally have an edge on the desktop.

Jesse