The world has gone MAD!!

oh my goodness!! the world has gone mad!!! microsoft has gone to bed with
SUSE!!! oh my goodness!! microsoft is buying 240mil worth of linux licenses
from novell!! oh my!! not only that, they've signed "co-operative" deals on
windows/linux interoperability (in a VM) and other stuff...

what does this all mean???!!! i think that:

1) microsoft needs the cross VM compatibility... future OSes are going to be
run in VMs... and MS is a late horse in the VM race as well... they don't
really have a solid offering, unlike the kind that VMWare or Xen has... so,
this deal might lend MS a way to ensure that they don't get locked out of the
non-MS VM market...

2) microsoft wants the $240mil SUSE licenses to answer customer demand.. they
probably hear a lot of customers who'd like to use Linux.. and being able to
bundle SUSE along with a host Windows OS, would allow MS to both satisfy
their customer demand, while ensuring that they do not lose the customer
completely to Linux..

3) patent co-licensing is an issue.. SUSE doesn't own Linux... so, i don't
know how this will help Linux.. it might help SUSE... it might also help MS
(from a marketing stand point).. but seriously, let's just hope that Linux
doesn't get abused here..

after saying all that, knowing the standard 3E strategy of MS, i hope that
novell keeps both eyes open... MS might just tweak their host OS to cause
foreign OSes to "under perform"... it would be a silly thing to do, but it's
just the kind of silly thing that MS could do..

but anyway, having such a deal itself, means that the world has changed... MS
is changing it's Linux strategy... and there'll be more exciting fireworks in
the future... i hope that the lawyers get things right though..