Yesterday’s LinuxWorld/Boston keynote by Microsoft’s Bill Hilf, director of Microsoft’s Platform Technology Strategy, made an announcement of support for Linux running on Virtual Server 2005 R2. The company will release plug-ins that will allow users to run leading distributions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SuSE Linux. In addition, this release of Virtual Server will be available as a free download.
Here it is on Microsoft’s site:
“Starting today, customers can consolidate their Linux-based applications on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and receive 24-hour support from Microsoft.”
Jeremy Geelan makes this observation: “LinuxWorld has never hosted a more extraordinary or unexpected set of announcements.”
While it may have been unexpected – it’s a smart and pragmatic move by Microsoft.
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