When IBM said that TurboHercules was a member of organizations Microsoft is a member of, it was particularly talking about OpenMainframe.org. It's an organization that seems dedicated to attacking IBM's mainframe business. It describes its purpose like this...

Earlier this week it was made public that IBM had levied patent infringement allegations against French company TurboHercules and its mainframe emulator. A letter signed by IBM VP and technology officer Mark S. Anzani and addressed to TurboHercules co-founder Roger Bowler detailed the more than 170 patents the company allegedly infringed upon.

[…] IBM has sent a nastygram to the company TurboHercules, with a “non-exhaustive” list of US patents that it believes “will be infringed” by TurboHercules' code.

Option investors bet heavily on Monday that Yahoo might strike a deal of some sort with Microsoft Corp, spurred on in part by pressure from activist shareholder Carl Icahn.

Microsoft has proposed an alternative deal for Yahoo, a complex transaction that would include just buying Yahoo's search business, rather than a full buyout, a person familiar with the discussions said on Monday.

So Canonical will make money from Yahoo searches (really Microsoft now with Bing powering Yahoo search) to help fund their efforts.

We have seen extensive press coverage of Microsoft's pursuit of Yahoo over the last few months, including notably excellent coverage from Silicon Alley Insider and the Wall Street Journal. However, I have not seen a detailed analysis of how a full hostile takeover might play out -- the kind of analysis that you would be receiving if you were a Microsoft or Yahoo board member.

Yet another analysis of Microsoft's relationship with Mono and GNU/Linux

Microsoft partners continue to attack GNU/Linux (on IBM mainframes) for its dominance that poses a threat to Windows Server

Further analysis of Canonical's deal with Yahoo! and some thoughts or suggestions