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2007'02.11.Sun
Microsoft and Novell Announce Broad Collaboration on Windows and Linux Interoperability and Support
November 03, 2006

Companies Also Announce a Patent Agreement Covering Proprietary and Open Source Products
    REDMOND, Wash., and WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 3
/Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and
Novell Inc. today announced a set of broad business and
technical collaboration agreements to build, market and
support a series of new solutions to make Novell and
Microsoft(R) products work better together. The two
companies also announced an agreement to provide each
other's customers with patent coverage for their respective
products. These agreements will be in place until at least
2012. Under this new model, customers will realize
unprecedented choice and flexibility through improved
interoperability and manageability between Windows(R) and
Linux.

    (Logo: 
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO )

    "They said it couldn't be done. 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," said
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. "We're excited to
work with Novell, whose strengths include its heritage as a
mixed-source company. Resolving our patent issues enables a
combined focus on virtualization and Web services
management to create new opportunities for our companies
and our customers."

    Under the agreement, Novell is establishing clear
leadership among Linux platform and open source software
providers on interoperability for mixed-source
environments. As a result, Microsoft will officially
recommend SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers who want
Windows and Linux solutions. Additionally, Microsoft will
distribute coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
maintenance and support, so that customers can benefit from
the use of an interoperable version of Linux with patent
coverage as well as the collaborative work between the two
companies. 

    "Too often technology companies ask their
customers to adapt to them. Today we are adapting to our
customers," said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of
Novell. "Microsoft and Novell are enabling customers
to take advantage of each other's products where it makes
sense in their enterprise infrastructure. We jointly
believe that our business and patent agreements make it
possible to offer the highest level of interoperability
with the assurance that both our companies stand behind
these solutions."

    Agreement Has Broad Scope

    The two companies will create a joint research facility
at which Microsoft and Novell technical experts will
architect and test new software solutions and work with
customers and the community to build and support these
technologies. The agreement between Microsoft and Novell
focuses on three technical areas that provide important
value and choice to the market:

    -- Virtualization. Virtualization is one of the most
important trends in 
       the industry. Customers tell Microsoft that
virtualization is one way 
       they can consolidate and more easily manage rapidly
growing server 
       workloads and their large set of server
applications. Microsoft and 
       Novell will jointly develop a compelling
virtualization offering for 
       Linux and Windows. 

    -- Web services for managing physical and virtual
servers. Web services 
       and service-oriented architectures continue to be
one of the defining 
       ways software companies can deliver greater value to
customers. 
       Microsoft and Novell will undertake work to make it
easier for 
       customers to manage mixed Windows and SUSE Linux
Enterprise 
       environments and to make it easier for customers to
federate Microsoft 
       Active Directory(R) with Novell eDirectory. 

    -- Document format compatibility. Microsoft and Novell
have been focusing 
       on ways to improve interoperability between office
productivity 
       applications. The two companies will now work
together on ways for 
       OpenOffice and Microsoft Office system users to best
share documents, 
       and both will take steps to make translators
available to improve 
       interoperability between Open XML and OpenDocument
formats. 

    "As a result of this collaboration, customers will
now be able to run virtualized Linux on Windows or
virtualized Windows on Linux," said Jeff Jaffe,
executive vice president and chief technology officer at
Novell. "Customers continually ask us how they can
consolidate servers with multiple operating systems through
virtualization. By working together, Novell and Microsoft
enable customers to choose the operating system that best
fits their application and business needs."

    The patent cooperation agreement enables Microsoft and
Novell to give customers assurance of protection against
patent infringement claims. It gives customers confidence
that the technologies they use and deploy in their
environments are compliant with the two companies' patents.


    As part of this agreement, Microsoft will provide a
covenant not to assert its patent rights against customers
who have purchased SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or other
covered products from Novell, and Novell will provide an
identical covenant to customers who have a licensed version
of Windows or other covered products from Microsoft.

    "Both companies had to think creatively about how
to create an intellectual property bridge between the two
worlds of open source and proprietary software," said
Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel of
Microsoft. "This bridge is built on respect for the
innovations of each company and the open source community,
and a passion for what we can deliver for our customers
together."

    Customer and Partner Reaction

    Microsoft and Novell announced the new alliance at an
event attended by several customers and partners. 

    "We applaud Novell and Microsoft in their efforts
to provide greater Windows and Linux
interoperability," said Paul Otellini, president and
chief executive officer of Intel Corporation.
"Customers want solutions that meet their individual
needs, and higher levels of software interoperability give
them the ability to more easily make the best
choices."

    "Windows and Linux are extremely important to our
enterprise customers and the industry, and AMD strongly
supports both," said Hector Ruiz, chairman and chief
executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices. "This
agreement by Novell and Microsoft helps customers bridge
the gap between these platforms, giving them greater
flexibility in doing what works best for them. This is a
great example of vendors working together to resolve
complexity so their customers don't have to."

    "This technology and business collaboration
provides a model that allows Microsoft and Novell to
develop new solutions to enable open source and proprietary
software to work better together in a mixed-source
environment," said Shane Robison, executive vice
president and chief strategy and technology officer at HP.
"We applaud these two companies for doing the hard
work to build a bridge between Windows and Linux."

    "IBM encourages more industry endorsement of
mixed-source solutions that promote open standards,"
said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive
at IBM Software. "Microsoft support for
interoperability with the industry-standard OpenDocument
Format is most welcome. Open documents give customers
choice and help unlock broad industry creativity, allowing
access to a new generation of innovative applications. Our
view continues to be that interoperability and choice are
key values that customers demand and deserve."

    "We are pleased to see that Novell and Microsoft
have come together to address customer needs with
heterogeneous operating environments," said Kevin
Kettler, CTO at Dell Inc. "As an industry leader in
the IT market, we are excited to see the technology
investments being made around virtualization and
interoperability by both companies with this
agreement." 

    "SAP has been the first enterprise application
vendor to run our apps on Linux, while we have more
Windows-based deployments than any other platform,"
said Shai Agassi, president of Product and Technology at
SAP. "Today's announcement means that customers can
now choose their preferred operating system for each part
of their SAP implementation with the confidence that the
systems will have strong interoperability and be supported
by SAP, Novell and Microsoft -- both companies being strong
SAP partners."

    "One of the key challenges in government is IT
interoperability," said Thomas Jarrett, secretary of
the Department of Technology and CIO of the state of
Delaware. "We commend Microsoft and Novell for their
collaboration and their efforts to build bridges in the
interoperability area, which will help government to better
serve our customers, our business community and our
citizens."

    Good for the Open Source Community

    Novell officials noted that one of their priorities in
working toward the agreement with Microsoft was making sure
the agreement made sense for the open source community. As
part of today's agreement, Novell and Microsoft are
announcing three important commitments. First, Microsoft
will work with Novell and actively contribute to several
open source software projects, including projects focused
on Office file formats and Web services management. Second,
Microsoft will not assert its patents against individual
noncommercial open source developers. And third, Microsoft
is promising not to assert its patents against individual
contributors to OpenSUSE.org whose code is included in the
SUSE Linux Enterprise platform, including SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

    "Today's announcement by Microsoft and Novell
marks a significant milestone in the adoption of
Linux," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of Open Source
Development Labs. "By choosing a course of
co-opetition, Microsoft acknowledges the critical role that
open source plays today in an enterprise IT infrastructure.
We appreciate the role Novell is playing to help bridge the
gap between Microsoft and the open source community. We are
glad to see these two companies collaborating to further
diminish the legal threat posed to developers and customers
by patent assertions. This is good for customer confidence
in Linux, the open source community and the broader IT
ecosystem."

    Additional Announcement Details

    Like many commercial transactions, the financial terms
of the agreement are not being disclosed at this time.

    Under the technical collaboration agreement, the
companies will create a joint research facility and pursue
new software solutions for virtualization, management and
document format compatibility. These are potentially huge
markets -- IDC projects the overall market for virtual
machine software revenue to be more than $1.8 billion by
2009, and the overall market for distributed system
management software to be $10.2 billion by 2010 -- and the
companies believe their investment in interoperability will
make their respective products more attractive to
customers.

    Under the patent cooperation agreement, both companies
will make upfront payments in exchange for a release from
any potential liability for use of each other's patented
intellectual property, with a net balancing payment from
Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger applicable volume
of Microsoft's product shipments. Novell will also make
running royalty payments based on a percentage of its
revenues from open source products.

    Under the business collaboration agreement, the
companies will pursue a variety of joint marketing
activities to promote the adoption of the technologies they
are collaborating on. In addition, Microsoft will purchase a
quantity of coupons from Novell that entitle the recipient
to a one-year subscription for maintenance and updates to
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Microsoft will annually make
available approximately 70,000 of these coupons to
customers, with a mix of priority and standard support
services. By providing its customers with these coupons,
Microsoft is enabling companies to benefit from the use of
the new software solutions developed through the
collaborative research effort, as well as a version of
Linux that is covered with respect to Microsoft's
intellectual property rights.

    The parties are assessing the accounting treatment for
the agreements and will provide information as required in
the course of their filings with the SEC.

    For more information on SUSE Linux Enterprise from
Novell, see http://www.novell.com/linux .

    For more information on Microsoft Windows, see
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass . 

    About Novell

    Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers Software for the
Open Enterprise(TM). With more than 50,000 customers in 43
countries, Novell helps customers manage, simplify, secure
and integrate their technology environments by leveraging
best-of-breed, open standards-based software. With more
than 20 years of experience, 4,700 employees, 5,000
partners and support centers around the world, Novell helps
customers gain control over their IT operating environments
while reducing costs. More information about Novell can be
found at http://www.novell.com .

    About Microsoft

    Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and
businesses realize their full potential.

    NOTE:  Microsoft, Windows and Active Directory are
either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

    Novell and SUSE are registered trademarks and Software
for the Open Enterprise is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in
the United States and other countries. *Linux is a
registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

    The names of actual companies and products mentioned
herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

    If you are interested in viewing additional information
on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft's corporate
information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles
were correct at time of publication, but may since have
changed. For additional assistance, journalists and
analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or
other appropriate contacts listed at
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx .   
 
    For more information, please contact:

     Rapid Response Team
     Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
     Tel:   +1-503-443-7070
     Email: rrt@waggeneredstrom.com 

     Jeff O'Mara 
     Microsoft
     Tel:   +1-415-608-3847
     Email: jomara@microsoft.com

     Bruce Lowry 
     Novell
     Tel:   +1-415-383-8408
     Email: blowry@novell.com

SOURCE  Microsoft Corp.

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