Microsoft Deal: Red Hat Quietly Jabs Novell

When Red Hat and Microsoft announced a virtualization partnership on February 16, both companies directed most of their messaging to customers. Now, Red Hat is back — promoting the Microsoft relationship to channel partners, and taking a thinly veiled shot at Novell. Here’s how.

In a February 18 blog post, Red Hat says the Microsoft deal will deliver a “bigger opportunity for channel partners.” Sure, the blog entry contains some marketing hype. But let’s give Red Hat (and Microsoft…) some credit here: The duo signed a partnership that serves customers and partners — without spinning up any patent controversy along the way.

According to the Red Hat blog post:

Oh, And About Novell…

Re-read that blog post again, and you’ll notice the following four key words: “Straightforward certification and validation agreements.”

Read between the lines, and Red Hat essentially is:

Hmmm. Let’s let Red Hat enjoy the moment — at least for the next few days. Novell on February 26 will step into the spotlight with its quarterly earnings results (here’s a preview). If SUSE Linux sales are continuing to grow, Novell will likely silence more skeptics who questioned the Microsoft-Novell relationship.

(Full disclosure: The VAR Guy wrote off Novell in mid-2007, but ate crow when he discovered growing momentum for SUSE Linux among channel partners…)

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