» The embrace that strangles — Microsoft and Novell and the future of Linux | Enterprise Anti-matter | ZDNet.com

This just in from the nefarious plot department: 

I think we're seeing the beginning of the end of Linux, much the way IE was the beginning of the end of Netscape, SQL Server was the beginning of the end of everyone else's desktop database system, and Excel and Word and a good deal more also succeeded in co-opting technology and product options in the marketplace: The ever-tightening embrace of Microsoft eventually assimilates everything that it touches. Unless history is to be rewritten with this one deal, Linux never looked worse off than it did today.

p.s. it was Access, not SQL Server, that accelerated consolidation (between Access and Apple FileMaker Pro) in the desktop database business.

Source: » The embrace that strangles — Microsoft and Novell and the future of Linux | Enterprise Anti-matter | ZDNet.com