That these claims also could be taken to mean that Novell is developing a non-standard Linux, one that is skewed only towards working with Windows, appears to have escaped Novell.
In other words, Novell has an "in" with Microsoft which Red Hat does not; Utah and Redmond are in bed together and Red Hat is an intruder.
Novell is quite clearly hoping that the long silence about the deal will slowly come to mean that people have accepted it and chosen to, in the words of Iraq invasion apologists, "move on."