Well, I think that companies that work in a mixed environment and those that use SUSE Linux have benefited from this. I also think this setup a foot print of what the future holds in such environments.

From a customer stand point, this is great news but from a company stand point, I don’t see what Novell has really gained. First Active Directory came along and killed Netware and now this will only water down the standards of LINUX.

I also think the effects are felt else were. I have tested OpenSUSE
11.1 and I must confess that with the improvements in the GUI, I can virtually do all I want with out going back to Windows. I also look at similar trends in Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva then Red Hat and Debian all of which I support and I think it has made ease of use a priority.

Most college kids now use it as an option. Businesses with tech savvy employees consider this an option. That is good.

In summary, I think the end user has benefited and the Linux community in general but I am yet to see how this helps Novell in the long run.

Augustine