Peter Galli over at Port25 is reporting:
Microsoft and Red Hat announced this morning that they have recently signed agreements to test and validate their server operating systems running on one another's hypervisors.
Co-opetition being as it is in the IT industry, this is an excellent move for both vendors. Supporting customer choice continues to be a winning strategy:
"This means that those customers with valid support agreements will be able to run these validated configurations and receive joint technical support for running Windows Server on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization, and for running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Hyper-V Server 2008," [Mike] Neil says.So, while Microsoft and Red Hat will continue to compete, customers have asked us to work together on technical support for server virtualization. These agreements respond to that request by giving them a new level of integration between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Server for their heterogeneous IT environments.
It really is great to see Microsoft opening up to opportunities like this. Whatever its history with open source, Microsoft keeps showing that they can evolve their thinking to remain relevant to their customer base.
This announcement hints to me that Microsoft's forthcoming cloud will support non-Microsoft environments (smart move!).
Very cool -- now when will this happen.
P.S.: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions."