"I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. [...] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?"

--Microsoft's chief evangelist

Summary: Microsoft's business strategy still involves mocking the competition rather than offering something better, let alone a truthful comparison; VMware and Novell still grow closer

MICROSOFT is trying to crash VMware's own event, to which it invited itself. Microsoft did the same thing to OpenOffice.org in Hungary last week and it did this before to VMware, even prior to appointment of former Microsoft executives there. It's usually out-sourced to PR agents that are hired by Microsoft to smear VMware's products, spreading leaflets with attack Web sites (same tactics which are used against Google). From The Register: "Microsoft slings mud in VMware living room"

On Tuesday, as VMware opened its annual VMworld conference in San Francisco, Microsoft dropped an open letter into national McPaper USA Today that accused the company of trying to lock customers into a technology platform incapable of building a "complete cloud computing environment." Then Redmond actually turned up at VMware's trade show to explain this sweeping claim, laying down any number of vague reasons why you shouldn't ink an IT contract with its estranged son, VMware boss Paul Maritz.

We wrote about this before and it's rather appalling given the timing, the venue, and the hypocrisy in these lies [1, 2].

Based on another press release which relates to what we covered last week, VMware gets closer to Novell and newer coverage about this includes:

1. SUSE Linux Enterprise for VMware

2. Beleaguered Novell Buoyed by VMware Linux Deal

Just when things were beginning to look pretty bleak for Novell, in comes a new partnership with an old friend to help the beleaguered company.

3. Suse Linux Enterprise Server for VMware ships

4. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server For VMware

5. VMware and Novell announces availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

6. VMware, Novell introduces SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware

7. Novell ships Suse Linux for VMware

Here is some more related coverage [1, 2, 3]. It is possible that VMware will buy a part of Novell at some stage. ⬆