Microsoft and Novell have announced a set of deals bunched together to create one of the most significant developments in the Linux versus Microsoft saga: technical collaboration, a so-called ‘intellectual property bridge’ (I-won’t-sue-you, you-won’t-sue me), and a joint support and services deal designed to counter the Oracle-Red Hat announcement of last week.

As this was breaking last night, our Open Source Practice Head Raven Zachary said, “Microsoft’s move to embrace Linux through an alliance with Novell is one of the most significant open source announcements to date. This announcement seems rushed, years in advance of what I expected from Microsoft, and clearly a response to Oracle’s announcement last week.”

First, the technical collaboration addresses three areas of threat by the open source world to Microsoft, to wit, server virtualization, web services management and open document formats. The companies will …