Microsoft has appointed an executive to run the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab announced last fall.Tom Hanrahan, former director of engineering at the Linux Foundation, is now Microsoft’s director of Linux interoperability, a company representative said on Thursday night. He will run the lab set up as part of the company’s controversial agreement on Linux and Windows interoperability with Novell, which has had both companies vowing not to sue each other’s customers over intellectual property issues. Hanrahan will report to Sam Ramji, who oversees platform technology strategy at Microsoft. Ramji runs the Microsoft Open Source Software Lab. Hanrahan, who will be part of Bill Hilf’s Platform Strategy team at Microsoft, also has worked for IBM’s Linux Technology Center and at Sequent Computer systems. Software Development