President and CEO of Novell Inc. , Ron Hovsepian (L) and CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer shake hands during a press conference San Francisco, California, 02 November 2006. Longtime US computer software rivals Microsoft and Novell unveiled an alliance on Thursday to make their competing programs interoperable. The alliance was devoted to "building a bridge" between Microsoft's patent-protected software and Novell programs based on the free, open-source Linux operating system, according to the companies. Getty Images logo Getty Images 37 months ago

President and CEO of Novell Inc. , Ron Hovsepian (L) and CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer shake hands during a press conference San Francisco, California, 02 November 2006. Longtime US computer software rivals Microsoft and Novell unveiled an alliance on Thursday to make their competing programs interoperable. The alliance was devoted to "building a bridge" between Microsoft's patent-protected software and Novell programs based on the free, open-source Linux operating system, according to the companies.