Longtime US software rivals Microsoft and Novell unveiled an alliance to make their competing programs interoperable.
WASHINGTON: Physicists are yet to achieve the quantum theory of gravity - the ultimate marriage in science between quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity. If only Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian were physicists.
On Thursday evening, the world’s No 1 software company, Microsoft, and the world’s leading maker of operating systems based on Linux, Novell, shook hands on a tie-up to create interoperable software and to “build, market, and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft products work better together”.
This means Microsoft will offer sales support for Novell’s SUSE Linux operating system and aim to create technologies that will allow Linux and Windows to run simultaneously on their computers — the Holy Grail of software.
“They (the critics) said it couldn’t be done,” Ballmer said on Thursday. “This is a new model and a true evolution of our relationship that we think customers will immediately find compelling because it delivers practical value by bringing two of their most important platform investments closer together.”
Hovsepian said, “Too often technology companies ask their customers to adapt to them. Today we are adapting to our customers.”
The tie-up ends years of cold war between Microsoft and makers of the Linux operating system with Microsoft hardly acknowledging the growing influence of open source software in both business and home environments.
For instance, the Firefox web browser, which is based on open source software, has already garnered a 15 per cent global market share with over 200 million downloads, and is closing in on Microsoft’s market leader, Internet Explorer.
The heart of the Microsoft-Novell tie-up is an agreement that promotes the development of virtualisation technologies, Web-services management, and document-format compatibility. Virtualisation allows a computer to perform like many, and therefore handle multiple tasks at once. This tie-up would let users run Linux to run on top of virtualised Windows, or vice-versa.
This tie-up could also result in a surge in hardware sales. Intel chairman Paul Otellini said, “We applaud Novell and Microsoft in their efforts to provide greater Windows and Linux interoperability. Customers want solutions that meet their individual needs, and higher levels of software interoperability give them the ability to make the best choices more easily.”
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