Red Hat and Microsoft enter virtualization support agreement

Red Hat and Microsoft have entered into a virtualization agreement. The agreement is designed so that Red Hat and Microsoft customers using virtualization from both companies can get support from either group.

Red Hat and Microsoft both emphasize that this agreement is not the same as the agreement that Microsoft has with Novell. That agreement covers such things as intellectual property, code indemnification and licensing.

Red Hat and Microsoft still very much remain competing platform vendors. Red Hat’s GM of virtualization Mike Neil emphasizes that “these agreements do not include any patent or other IP licensing rights.” The agreement with Novell is more of a partnership agreement where Microsoft gives it’s customers coupons to purchase SuSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell.

Red Hat and Microsoft will enter into each other’s validation phases for their respective virtualization technologies. The results of these tests will be posted throughout the year on the Red Hat and Microsoft websites.

With the base of heterogenous hosts and virtual guests I suspect this is not the only agreement like this that we will see.

-j