Red Hat and Microsoft Agree to Deal

Red Hat has announced that it will team up with Microsoft for computer virtualization.  According to the Nashville Business Journal, virtualization is a technology that allows companies to run multiple operating systems on a single server.  The agreement enables both companies to  join each other’s “validation/certification program” for virtualization.   

While many are familiar with Microsoft’s product, Windows, Red Hat is a provider of specialized forms of Linux.  Thus, this deal will provide technical support to those who wish to use both Windows and Linux on their servers.

Surprisingly absent from the deal are any patent licensing agreements.  Some believe this absence stems from a prior agreement that Microsoft reached with Novel, which is a key competitor with Red Hat.

This agreement may have come as a bit of a surprise for many in the industry.  The two companies have often clashed, as Microsoft has claimed in the past that Linux violates a number of its patents.  Red Hat, however, claims that software patents generally impede development.  Such differences are not surprising considering the fundamental differences between Linux and Microsoft.  Linux is open source software, in which code is shared by programmers around the world.  Microsoft, on the other hand, writes the code for Windows and keeps it private.