Summary: The inclusion of SLE* in some large, high-profile deployments enables Microsoft to profit from its competition

IBM's continued SLES preference in mainframes and some supercomputers is not helpful. "Novell server powers 'Jeopardy!' computer" says one headline among several others (some of which we mentioned before and criticised). Tell IBM to stop stocking SUSE. It's Microsoft-taxed, it's Ballnux. Dell recently started doing the same thing; its new SUSE-supporting server offers more avenues from which Microsoft can raise a profit, mostly at Red Hat's expense. Novell is rather notorious for its reliance on Red Hat's work which it then releases prematurely and adds Microsoft tax to. Watch this new FT article that says: "The deal is quite a coup for Novell, which supplied its Suse Linux Enterprise Server product modified with a real-time “kernel” to reduce latency times."

To many people's surprise, it is actually Ballnux at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), not Red Hat. Among Novell's raves about IBM's role in SLE* deployments there is this new press release with similar text which is based on it. The bottom line is, Microsoft paid Novell a lot of money to create a precedence and a trap; thanks to Novell, Microsoft is not profiting from code it has nothing to do with. â–ˆ