Over the course of the day I have been observing a torrent of good news for Red Hat. This company, which is Novell's main rival, appears to quickly recover from an almost-simultaneous onslaught, courtesy of Novell, Microsoft, and Oracle. This recovery was not made possible owing to the immediate buybacks alone. Red Hat now boasts support from over 2000 independent software vendors (ISV's), its stock just rose 2.36% and it received an upgrade from an analyst. To quote the relevant bits:

...we believe that there are still enormous returns on investment opportunities associated with the Open Source movement…The recent announcements from Oracle and Microsoft create an interesting dilemma for investors, however we believe that Dell, IBM and HP, etc., will stay the course and continue to support Red Hat, and the recent headlines have provided a unique opportunity to “get involved” in the Linux story.

This proves not only that Ellison's and Ballmer's FUD strategy cannot boggle the customer's perception. It may also come to show that Red Hat will soon acquire customers at Novell's expense. Not even the world's largest software companies, as prominent as they these titans may be, can undermine the Linux industry as a whole. It is by all means reassuring.