As part of the announcement, Microsoft and Novell are revealing the details of two new offerings resulting from the joint technical collaboration. Novell is announcing the general availability release of its Advanced Management Pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, available in the first half of 2009. A technical preview of the Advanced Management Pack was shown earlier this month at the Tech Ed EMEA IT Professionals 2008 conference in Barcelona, Spain. The timing of the Advanced Management Pack coincides with the release of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, also slated for release in the first half of 2009. Microsoft and Novell's collaborative work in systems management aims to ease customers' management of mixed IT environments. The Advanced Management Pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 extends the cross-platform Linux monitoring capability of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and enables the assessment and management of Windows- and Linux-based servers from a single, unified console, eliminating the costs and complexities of having multiple management consoles. It also reduces training costs and optimizes staff resources, because individuals need to be trained on only one management tool. In addition, one team can manage both Windows and Linux environments. The other new initiative the companies are announcing is the upcoming beta availability of Moonlight, an open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight that provides Linux-based users with the same rich, high-definition media capabilities currently available for the Windows and Apple environments. Moonlight will be provided as an open source plug-in for the Firefox Web browser. More information about the Microsoft and Novell agreement can be found at http://www.moreinterop.com.