A few quick notes on our friends in Waltham and Redmond, respecively.

Novell in Compliance with Nasdaq

This is certainly good to hear for Novell, and I no longer need to ponder making a template for those non-compliance notices each quarter. Now that their stock options review is complete they have filed all of their requisite paperwork, Novell are now considered as being back in the good graces of Nasdaq.

The company received three warnings from the exchange after it failed to submit two quarterly earnings reports and its 2006 annual report. Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ) said it submitted the reports last month after completing a review of past stock option grants.

Nasdaq officials notified the company Tuesday that the issue has been resolved and the company's shares will continue trading on the exchange.

Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Interoperability

Microsoft has hired former Linux Foundation engineering director Tom Hanrahan, and I would like to wish him luck in that position. I would have appreciated learning that I did not get the position in some other manner than seeing it in the news, but whatever.

In an e-mail late Thursday night, a Microsoft representative said the role will be filled by Tom Hanrahan, who was most recently the director of engineering at the Linux Foundation, the group created through the recent combination of the Free Standards Group and the Open Source Development Labs.

Now, whether this is a position in which Hanrahan will be able to (or truly desire to) affect any change within Redmond will remain to be seen. Previous experiences with Linux folks who try to reform Microsoft from within have generally ended badly.