Yesterday afternoon came a surprising announcement of partnership from two old-time rivals, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL). The two said they would collaborate to build, market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft products work better together. That is, Linux Suse, the operating system distributed by Novell, would be able to work with Windows, Microsoft's operating system. Novell shares were up over 15% yesterday before the announcement on speculation/leaks.

Linux is a free open-source software platform, something Microsoft has been opposing for quite some time. In fact, Microsoft's very closed, almost paranoid approach to its proprietary software and code, as well as its dominance, probably caused the birth of Linux. In response to Microsoft's dominant position, programmers all around the world have developed a Unix-based operating system, collaborating and contributing to the system.

General Electric closed today at $34.40, down 15 cents, on a day where markets slipped further and included warnings from Alan Greenspan.

GE today announced the acquisition of SBS Technologies, a move that bolsters the unit of GE that builds embedded computer systems and controllers in various robotics and integrated computer systems on that scale.

GE's security business also announced an upgrade to its UNIX platform 'thin client' solution. Although with many other solutions out there, the only edge GE has is that it's part of an effort to use the most recent worries about security to move some technology. It's hardly a major player in the field. It was not exactly an exciting day for GE on an already slow day for the market, so it isn't all that surprising to see the stock price slip.