Novell Inc. and Microsoft Corp., trying to expand the reach of their unusual alliance, say they plan to put a bigger emphasis on the Chinese market. The companies say they will make an extra investment to sell more support subscriptions for Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system in China.

Linux software vendor Novell Inc. of Waltham is expanding its alliance with Microsoft Corp. into China, in a bid to encourage Chinese companies to start paying for the software they use to run their businesses.

Novell has signed a cooperation agreement with China Standard Software Company (CS2C), the leading Linux firm in China. The two companies will promote the development and adoption of Linux in the country, and combine resources on distribution of technology and services for the Chinese market.

Yesterday we wrote about Novell’s news from China and warned that Microsoft and Novell had begun to share some more vocabulary. Several more articles have since then been published to cover the new announcement, including this one.

Microsoft demonstrates how much times have changed by reprising its 'Novell' type of caper in China.

Microsoft has seemed to be flying high in the Peoples Republic of China lately. Bill Gates spent several days in Beijing earlier this year in meetings with high-level officials, after hosting Chinese President Hu Jintao the spring before at Gate's own home.

Novell’s recent news about China [1, 2, 3] is pretty significant because this shows what tricks Microsoft and Novell hope to make more widespread and prevalent around the world, not just in Asia. It’s a symbolic start that illustrates just why Novell has become dangerous to GNU/Linux adoption (contrary to common belief).

For Microsoft, trouble likely to come from China; another big dip in value

China has unanimously voted "no, with comments" on OOXML. As I had noted in an earlier blog entry, China had been signalling some displeasure with Microsoft and OOXML in recent weeks, via Xinhua, the official government news agency, so this is not totally a surprise.