Microsoft's decision to collaborate with Novell on Linux seems to have caused confusion everywhere. On one hand, Microsoft looks to have been taking a mild swipe at Linux by indemnifying Novell's SuSE Linux against any of Microsoft patents—implying perhaps that Microsoft might one day embark on some kind of anti-Linux patents actions. On the other, Microsoft is clearly embracing Linux. It wants .NET to run on Linux and it's serious.

The indemnification comments are probably an attempt to keep the market feeling a little uneasy about Linux. After all the SCO case is not yet over and Linux FUD may discourage some possible Linux customers. In any event, Microsoft is silently acknowledging that it is losing or indeed has lost the OS war on the server.

Confirmation of this comes from a recent IBM-sponsored study on Linux, which is referred to on ZD Net. Apparently there's a chart in the report showing that “83% of companies expect to support new workloads on Linux next year, against 23% for Windows”. Also two thirds of respondents were intending to increase their use of Linux with very few saying they'd decrease it.

If this survey is even close to reality, it has to be pretty devastating for Microsoft, especially if you bear in mind that Microsoft has a whole swathe of applications and tools that only run on Windows. Consider the damage that the move towards niche platform status has done to application vendors in the past. (Think about Digital or the AS/400).

So it is quite likely that the Novell collaboration is defensive rather than offensive. If .NET is able to run on Linux then Microsoft is far less vulnerable to Linux dominance of the server market. Right on cue and on display at Microsoft TechEd Developers Conference & Expo (November 9), Novell introduced Mono 1.2 which enables Linux and Unix users to use Microsoft .NET code and applications. If you look at the features of Mono 1.2, on paper at least, it pretty much does the job.

It is very early days in the Microsoft/Novell collaboration, but I'm betting that Novell's shareholder's are delighted. Maybe Microsoft will eventually buy Novell?