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Novell and Microsoft insist customers just love their deal
December 12, 2006

Despite skepticism from various quarters of the open source movement, Novell and Microsoft are insistent that their interoperability and patent peace deal is good for the customer, and they’ve commissioned a survey to prove it.

According to a joint statement from the twosome, independent market research firm Penn, Schoen & Berland conducted 201 interviews between November 17-20 with IT executives, managers and the like.

I haven’t had a chance to read through the full details as yet, but the headline results as presented by Novell and Microsoft are as follows:

- "Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration between Novell and Microsoft.

- Eighty-seven percent said that customers benefit if leading Linux distributors and Microsoft worked more closely with one another.

- Four out of five believe their organization would consider doing more business with Linux dealers if Linux providers establish an alliance with Microsoft.

- Sixty-seven percent said they're more likely to consider deploying SUSE Linux from Novell.

- More than two-thirds of all respondents, and 79 percent of respondents who currently use Red Hat, said the agreement was more likely to make them choose SUSE Linux for their data center.

- Ninety-seven percent said they wanted platform providers to improve interoperability of their systems.

- Eighty-nine percent want technology companies to take responsibility for the intellectual property in the products they ship.

- Also, more than seven in 10 are more likely to deploy Linux with intellectual property rights, which would limit their corporation's exposure to risk."

More on this later when I’ve had a chance to digest it, but the first thought is that few people have claimed the deal is bad for Novell or Microsoft’s customers. The question has been whether it is good for the open source movement, open source developers, or indeed Novell itself. Those issues do not appear to have been addressed by the survey.

UPDATE
I’ve just noticed that only 67% of all respondents were already aware of the agreement between Microsoft and Novell. The remaining 33% based their opinion of the deal on the following provided statement:

“On November 2nd, Microsoft and Novell announced a set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build, market, and support a series of new solutions to improve interoperability for customers and make Novell and Microsoft products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other's customers with patent coverage for their respective products.”

I should state that I do not disagree that the deal is good for the companies’ customers, but when a third of respondents are replying based on that statement – and only that statement – it puts a slightly different view on the results.

It should also be noted that some of the questions asked are leading to say the least. For example:

“I want platform providers to improve the interoperability of their systems.”

“Technology companies should create partnerships to ensure that their products work well together.”

“I want tools that make it easier to manage IT environments that have both Windows and Linux.“

“Technology companies, not end users or businesses, should take responsibility for the intellectual property in the products they ship and service.”

How many businesses do you know that would disagree with any of those statements?

Like Mary Jo Foley I think there are a few other questions they could have asked.