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Hovsepian went on to say that "This deal was done for one reason – the customer. This was all about driving customers to make their lives easier, and about interoperability. This is a customer-driven move and we will remain customer focused."

This customer focus theme was repeated over and over again. While some free-software fans oppose the Novell/Microsoft partnership, Hovsepian was not addressing their concerns. He was addressing what he believes to be the concerns of Novell's partners and their customers.

In the next sections of the morning keynote session, the benefits of the Microsoft/Novell deal were reiterated over and over again. Novell VP and CTO Jeff Jaffe and Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie appeared together on the tradeshow stage and engaged in a question and answer section. Their theme: how interoperability and virtualization were key to the future of both companies and how the pair would work together so that Linux and Novell's management applications and Microsoft's server and management could work together.

Jaffe foresees a world with two operating systems: Linux and Windows. In his vision of the future, Linux will become the universal platform. On top of SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), the Windows server operating systems, NetWare and other versions of Linux will run as virtualized operating system. "Customers don't need many operating systems," said Jaffe. "They need open-source systems built on a common code basis."

He went on to say that Novell is putting its efforts behind Linux and the JES (Java Enterprise Services), while Microsoft is, of course, focusing on Windows and .NET. But, he continued, once a company has made a decision on which operating system and development platform it will use, Novell intends to provide the best possible network management tools and services for both systems.

In fact, Jaffe said that with the just-announced OES (Open Enterprise Server) 2.0, Novell will be providing Windows domain services. In addition, with Novell's ZENworks, "We will be the best managers for Microsoft's Vista desktop systems."