Novell is making no outlandish market-share projections. It barely even mentions Microsoft anymore, except when it's suing Gates & Co. (and then collecting) for past anticompetitive transgressions. "Novell Linux Desktop is not about the wholesale replacement of your Windows systems," the company says, "but rather it's about identifying where and when an open-source desktop can be a sensible, cost-effective alternative." Sounds reasonable enough.
The platform holy wars are over--or at least they're taking on a more secular air. Even Scott McNealy, the notoriously zealous chief of Sun Microsystems, is turning iconoclast, straddling the line between Solaris and Linux while making nice with Microsoft. It's Microsoft, in fact, that's occupying the bully pulpit, as CEO Steve Ballmer rails against Linux's cost of acquisition, cost of ownership, security and licensing indemnification, all without acknowledging that thousands of Microsoft customers are anxious to deploy both Windows and Linux and are looking to Redmond for help.
IT pros can emulate Novell's temperate tone. It's your job to recommend Linux or Unix or Windows for certain applications based on cogent technical and business analyses, not on principle. Your proprietary and open-source options have never been greater. Explore them.
Rob Preston is editor in chief of Network Computing. Write to him at [email protected].