So you think, in the long term, Novell is your greatest Linux competitor? No question, because they have the best point-to-point stack from the kernel through to the application layer and things that go on top of it. Now the challenge will be [that] they're going to need to do stuff to differentiate themselves from Red Hat, which then means that they need to find ways to basically almost have a customized distribution. And you can end up with Linux not being Linux, but Red Hat Linux being different than Novell SUSE Linux, Debian Linux and Mandrake, or whatever the case is. We're already beginning to see some of that with how they're taking snapshots of the kernel, where the kernel is and putting it into their distributions.

Where do you see IBM fitting into the competitive picture? I think that they're going to continue to take advantage of a services opportunity on the complexities in the Linux environment and say, "Hey, because of our global services business, we can cobble things together and try to veil that for the customer and deliver solutions."  ...

I don't completely see the road map for IBM. In some ways, I don't think IBM completely sees the long-term road map for their Linux embracement, which is the reason why maybe they haven't stepped up to indemnify Linux in the way that HP has and some of the ways that Novell has and Red Hat has. They've really just stayed on the sideline and left their customers to sit there on indemnification and some other things.

Any other surprises? The surprising thing, a little bit, is how predictable our conversations are now with customers. ... One other thing that's come up more over the last 12 months is this notion of indemnification [against patent and copyright claims]. More and more customers are asking us, "Help me understand what you do from an indemnification perspective versus HP or IBM or Red Hat or Novell." That's weighing into decisions more and more. ... Customers began introducing it and asking me about it more than I was introducing it to them. And I began to say, "Wow. We really stand behind our technology in a pretty aggressive way. We should make sure that we get credit for that compared to Linux in many ways." And it's actually been something that tips the scales sometimes when people are on the fence.