pretty good return on investment overall (Score 1)

Looking at it from a business investment point of view, let's find the return on investment. Say it takes a cool $7.2 million to make this transition (6,000 employees spending 40 hours training/learning/downtime @ $30/hr = $7.2 million). Shaving $900K per year pays you back in 8 years ($900K * 8 = $7.2 mil), because those licensing costs they saved are recurring. Using the 'rule of 72' from investing, if we make our money back in 8 years, we're getting roughly 9% return on an investement. That's probably close to the ROI cut off of most businesses, and when you factor in the competitive advantages of

1. not supporting a competitor
2. eating your own dog food and learning from it
3. being on the leading edge of change in the tech industry

sounds like Novell has made a pretty good move. Of course this business case is shot if the costs of transition go thru the roof, but if you do it intelligently (i.e. stepwise, like it sounds they are doing), its easily managed and should be a success. I wish they were hiring, though, because they seem like one of the few companies with a head on its shoulders about how to deal with opportunity and change in this brave new world of Free software. Of course, if my numbers don't convince you, just use common sense - most of the rest of the world is embracing GNU/Linux pretty strongly and if we don't .... well, let's just say "You can pry my Longhorn DVDs from my cold, jobless fingers!"