“In the enterprise Linux space, 2006 was marked by greater
expansion of Linux into vertical markets, new products, and most
notably, a string of surprise business deals among vendors. The
year also bore witness to an increasing trend, of sorts, among
Novell, Oracle, and other software companies to justify their
actions on the basis of ‘customer demand.’“To be sure, customers keep wanting smoother and less costly
Linux implementations, as a general rule. They’d also like to avoid
the threat of lawsuits. But the demands of individual customers can
vary a lot, based on the size of the enterprise, its existing
operating environments, the organizational culture, and practically
innumerable other factors…”