Excusez-moi

"embrace, extend and extinguish strategy?" Perhaps but now it's more difficult
Some News:
French police deal blow to Microsoft
"We will introduce Linux every time we have to replace a desktop computer," he said, "so this year we expect to change 5,000-8,000 to Ubuntu and then 12,000-15,000 over the next four years so that every desktop uses the Linux operating system by 2013-2014."

23,000 Linux PCs forge education revolution in Philippines
Linux still cheaper than heavily-subsidized Microsoft products

Dell releases new Ubuntu-powered laptop: XPS 1330n

Linspire, maker of Linspire and Freespire desktop Linux configurations, and PC maker Mirus Innovations will sell its Mirus Linux PC on Sears.com for $199

A low-cost laptop for children based on Intel's Classmate PC design is now shipping in computer stores in Vietnam. Hacao's Classmate PC is pre-installed with Hacao Linux 2.16 Professional, a Vietnamese-language distribution based on Puppy Linux.

Asus unveils 42in Linux-based Eee TV

Enough for now

Joe, you are reading too much into it, its all about choice.

Re:
What if this is a new twist on Embrace Extend Extinguish. The goal could be to consolidate the market around one or two major enterprise Linux distributors and marginalize the rest

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It's interesting to think about this as an EXX strategy. But I can't agree with the idea:

1) (Most) Linux organizations are always watching the fine print with Microsoft.
2) How can Linux be any more marginalized than it already is? sigh...

The only benefit I see for Microsoft in this agreement is "Linux insurance" and public image.

The windows desktop era is over (to the applause of many), MS must do what ever they can now to survive. A NOVELL life line is important to MS. NOVELL wrote software a decade ago that Microsoft needs to monitor, and secure their SaaS attempt.

Remember the MS Novell agreement was to not sue each other when patents were infringed, then MS forked over $550 million (for 5 years use)of patents... and Novell Paid MS 50 million...apparently NOVELL patents are worth more than MS patents.
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Novell is Networking, they invented it, its their roots. They are good at it, NSS is far superior to any "platter splatter" MS has.

MS on the other hand is marketing, they write crappy software and you continue to buy it in hopes of the next version will fix your problems today... your caught in their cycle. ID-10-T.

Remember why most businesses bought computers? It was to gain the competitive edge...in a single company solution (OK monopoly) there is no completive edge opportunity.

Renault uses SUSE directly. There was an announcement sometime ago that there where changing their desktops to Linux but i can't find it. In France there is a "movement" to change to Linux (the parliament, police, PSA group etc). It seems that France, at least in the public sector, wants to steer away from Microsoft. And who is to blame them except Microsoft of course. As for EXX danger i think that now companies are much more "wise" in dealing with Microsoft and don't forget that Novell is not the only company in the Linux ecosystem.

Beside MS being a formidable sales org.,they insure hardware companies write drivers for their software and installing drivers is still a no brainer for MS windows users. This is an area the Linux community has yet to address effectively.

When they do address the hardware issues MS will be in deep trouble, in these recessionary times.

Duke Nukem says:
Novell is Networking, they invented it, its their roots. They are good at it, NSS is far superior to any "platter splatter" MS has.

@Duke Nukem:
Well, not quite. Computer systems have been networked together for many years long before Novell. A friend and I added networked remote-accessed disks to the custom minicomputer operating system I developed... all back in 1980. And we weren't the first by any stretch of the imagination.

But yes, as you say, Novell pioneered networking for low-end PCs. And it's only fitting that they are now have Suse Linux. I found out in 1988 that it's as difficult to keep Unix systems from networking as it is to get DOS/Windows systems to network.

@Tom Berber:
It's me, renamed since my previous post at http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_seven_enough_already.html#comment-266750

@Philosopher

Got it. Thanks!