Linux playing well with Windows is a scenario that has generated a healthy amount of profit for Novell. Back in November 2006, Microsoft and Novell announced an interoperability agreement between their two respective operating systems. While the focus was indeed placed on interoperability, the adjacent terms of the partnership, and especially intellectual property assurance, spawned a barrage of criticism that hit both Novell and Microsoft.

After the first year, the two companies have grown the initial alliance, broadening the interoperability scope with a strong emphasis on virtualization, and opening a joint lab. But in the end, profitability is also a key aspect of the agreement, and the Redmond company has benefited from customers looking to protect themselves against intellectual property infringement cases. Novell also benefited from the deal, announcing that it had received no less than $355.6 million from Microsoft, in 2007. In this context, it is not surprising that top Novell executives have praised the agreement with Microsoft.

"Linux and Open Source technologies continue their advancement into today's data centers where according to Gartner, 67% of data centers run some combination of Linux and Windows. Serving this growing market reality was the driving catalyst behind our interoperability partnership with Microsoft. While there are certainly user and productivity benefits from deploying the right technology for the task, it does carry a potentially higher degree of management complexity. We view it as our mission to reduce this complexity on behalf of our customers thereby letting them focus on their own business innovation and growth", revealed John Dragoon, Chief Marketing Officer for Novell.

"So what happened? Bookings went through the roof as customers saw the value in this partnership. We brought new marquee customers to Linux. Revenue took off. We grew share. But bookings are just the beginning. The partnership with Microsoft became the lever to build a broader Linux ecosystem", explained Jeff Jaffe, Chief Technical Officer for Novell.

Without mentioning the Windows-Linux joint interoperability lab, Jaffe also emphasized a few landmark aspects of the Microsoft and Novell collaboration, including the building of the Moonlight technology, the tailoring of Silverlight and of the Microsoft's accessibility framework for Linux.