Oh, my. On the one hand, Mary Jo is reporting that, just as Novell's Bruce Lowry had said, Novell's pact with Microsoft seems to be earning it back market share against Red Hat. On the other hand, and of much greater concern, the pact doesn't seem to be helping drive Linux forward, as the deal promised to do. Instead, it is carving up a still small Linux pie, and actually draining Linux growth and putting that m Oh, my. On the one hand, Mary Jo is reporting that, just as Novell’s Bruce Lowry had said, Novell’s pact with Microsoft seems to be earning it back market share against Red Hat. On the other hand, and of much greater concern, the pact doesn’t seem to be helping drive Linux forward, as the deal promised to do. Instead, it is carving up a still small Linux pie, and actually draining Linux growth and putting that money in Microsoft’s pocket:SuSE’s gain seemingly isn’t impacting Windows Server marketshare among the IT professionals that Yankee surveyed. About 12 percent of Windows users surveyed by Yankee who had “defected” to Linux are now reversing their decisions and coming back to the Microsoft fold,” according to an executive summary of the report that I had a chance to see last week.In short, Novell is getting what it wants – to hurt Red Hat – but not getting what it really wants – to grow the market and take a larger share of that market. Novell may have succeeded in winning a skirmish, but is also helping to lose the battle, the war, and everything else for Linux/open source. Laura DiDio, author of the report, didn’t suggest that customers are benefiting from the agreement, either, but Microsoft is. Its motivations behind the deal?“I really think the main impetus for the MS/Novell deal was to 1) undercut Red Hat; 2) by embracing Novell, Microsoft gets to “hold its’ friends close and its’ enemies closer” BUT most importantly by embracing and supporting Linux in this matter, Microsoft gains an important ally in the ongoing EC antitrust actions — the Microsoft/Novell alliance severely diminishes many of the anti-competitive allegations the EC is lobbing against Microsoft. And at the time they inked the deal, that was very much (and still is,) on Microsoft’s mind…”This is what I’ve been saying from the beginning. Whatever Novell may think it’s getting out of the deal, the bigger, stronger partner in the deal (Microsoft) is…getting bigger and stronger. The Microsoft/Novell deal is not a win for Linux. It’s a win for Microsoft. Bien fait, Novell. Your myopia on this deal may well end up hurting us all. Open Source