The VAR Guy

All it takes is a misleading press release to get The VAR Guy up on his soapbox. Consider the latest PR materials from Microsoft and Novell, in which the companies claim more customer momentum around their Windows-Linux partnership.

Microsoft and Novell say the first three customers to benefit from the partnership are Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and AIG. The VAR Guy decided to take a closer look and was rather surprised by his findings.

A month ago, a Credit Suisse financial analyst downgraded Novell’s stock, indicating that the Novell-Microsoft partnership would hurt Novell’s standing in the open source community. Hmmm. Sounds like the Credit Suisse IT team didn’t get the memo from the Credit Suisse financial analyst team.

And what about Deutsche Bank and AIG? Glad you asked.

Deutsche Bank has been running SuSE Linux since at least 2002, so this isn’t a new win for Novell. In fact, Deutsche Bank was an early investor in SuSE Linux, so it’s hardly surprising that the firm’s IT team now praises the Novell-Microsoft deal.

Next, The VAR Guy looked for more background about AIG running SuSE Linux–but he found little information. Perhaps this truly is a new win for SuSE Linux. If so, kudos for Novell and Microsoft.

Still, each time the duo claims another Windows-Linux victory, it begs the question: If Microsoft is truly committed to Windows-Linux interoperability, how come the company isn’t working with Red Hat–the overwhelming Linux market leader?