When I first heard about this new appointment, I worried that I had heard about Boeing becoming one among the costumers of Novell-Microsoft ‘interoperability’ (I can’t quite find a reference, so I’m probably wrong here).

About Delta, well… I know very little, but whenever you talk about those monopolistic giants, such as Wal-Mart and SAP, there’s a certain mentality that comes dripping from their management. For instance, the Wal-Mart-Microsoft executive ties were mentioned at the time of their deal. The PRs contained some FUDdy appendages that propagated onto the press. We covered this here.

Matthew Szulik has always insisted that only standards are the way to go. Mark Shuttleworth, on the other hand, concentrated on the effect of Microsoft’s threats (he called them “racketeering”), but he put less emphasis on the standards element. In fact, he said he’d love to do a deal with Microsoft, but not under these conditions (patents). That appeared as an interview in the South African press. Later on, Shuttleworth urged his country to adopt open standards and by all means avoid OOXML, so I think Shuttleworth truly understands the situation, overall.

I wonder how Delta — and James Whitehurst in particular — relate to Microsoft and Novell. Some Web searches might bring something up, but that would be time consuming.

Later . . . Jim