“Generally, Linux professionals greeted the double whammy with
cautious optimism. Evan Leibovitch, president of the Linux
Professional Institute, the certification body for all open-source
software, said the moves were excellent for both companies–Novell
has an extensive network of support and business partners as well
as about 25,000 reseller channel partners, which Red Hat and SuSE
do not. As for Red Hat, it too is playing to its own strength,
which is the success of its enterprise product.“Mr. Leibovitch noted that Novell would now offer Red Hat some
powerful competition. Moreover, he said, ‘there’s no reason Novell
shouldn’t overtake Red Hat in two years.’“What does all this have to do with Microsoft?
“Everything, it seems…”